LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the 
Mrs.   Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund. 

BV  110  .L482  1910 

Lewis,  Abram  Herbert,  1836- 

1908. 
Spiritual  sabbathism 


/Ya 


SPIRITUAL 
SABBATHISM 


BT    THB    LATE 


ABRAxM  HERBERT  LEWIS 

D.D.,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR  OF  "PAGANISM  SURVIVING  IN  CHRISTIANITY' 

"A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  SUNDAY  LEGISLATION' 

ETC. 


PLAINFIELD,  N.  J. 

THE  AMERICAN  SABBATH  TRACT  SOCIETY 

1910 


Copyright  igio 
By  the  American  Sabbath  Tract  Society 


THIS  BOOK,   THE  LAST  WORK  OF  THE  REVEREND 

atitam  ^ettiect  ILeU)t$ 

For  many  years  the  corresponding  secretary  of  the  American 
Sabbath  Tract  Society,  is  fraternally  dedicated  to  all  lovers 
of  truth.     It  is  published  by  the  Society  not  only  as  a 
contribution  to  the  discussion  of  a  great  religious 
issue,  but  also  as  an  affectionate  tribute  to  the 
author's  Christian  manhood,  his  ripe  scholar- 
ship, and  his  lifelong  labors  for  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  Sabbath  of  Jehovah, 
the  Sabbath  of  Jesus  the  Christ. 


apa   dTroAetVeTai   craPPaTiafio's   tw   Aaw   tou    Oeov. — Hcbvews   iv,   9* 


PREFACE. 

Crises  are  inevitable,  for  they  are  ordained  of 
God.  History  is  jfilled  with  them.  All  great  re- 
forms come  by  crises,  for  evil  grows  strong  while 
men  sleep.  Escape  from  crises  is  impossible.  God 
is  in  them,  and  eternal  verities  would  be  forgotten 
but  for  them.  All  great  movements,  whether  po- 
litical, social,  or  religious,  are  born  in  some  crisis 
in  which  elements  of  the  outgrown  are  destroyed. 
Religious  issues  remain  unsettled  until  they  are  set- 
tled right,  that  is,  on  spiritual  grounds. 

Three  great  crises  in  the  Sabbath  question  have 
appeared  in  history,  as  the  present  work  will  show. 
A  fourth  crisis  is  at  hand.  The  key  to  the  present 
situation  is  a  spiritual  key.  The  coming  epoch  is 
to  be  met  on  higher  ground  than  was  occupied  at 
any  time  in  the  past  history  of  Christianity.  It  de- 
mands an  upward  step  so  important  that  it  must  be 
called  revolutionary  as  well  as  evolutionary.  The 
entire  Sabbath  question  calls  for  a  new  spiritual  basis 
— new  in  comparison  with  positions  hitherto  taken 
by  Christians. 


VI  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

The  hour  demands  clearness  of  conviction  con- 
cerning fundamental  and  eternal  spiritual  values. 
Dogmatism  is  useless,  compromises  are  delusive. 
In  the  presence  of  unspiritual  and  irreligious  holiday- 
ism,  Protestant  theories  concerning  the  Sabbath 
question  are  on  trial  before  the  grand  jury  of  Chris- 
tian history.  Indictment  has  begun.  History  is 
an  impartial  and  relentless  judge,  and  the  inexorable 
logic  of  events  is  an  unbribable  executive  officer. 
The  court  is  permanently  open,  and  the  trial  will  be 
finished. 

Our  time  is  burdened  with  materialistic  philosophy 
and  "scientific"  unfaith.  The  popular  call  is  for 
immediate  tests  and  demonstrated  finality.  Spir- 
ituality and  the  eternal  verities  are  out  of  date,  for 
they  can  neither  be  verified  in  the  laboratory  nor 
cashed  at  the  bank.  If  you  admit  to  men  of  prac- 
tical and  materialistic  temper  that  spirituality  and 
the  eternal  verities  are  hard  to  define,  you  are  re- 
garded as  defending  the  ghostly  relics  of  primitive 
thought.  They  can  not  understand  that  the  strug- 
gle for  spirituality  is  not  finished,  that  it  is  the 
chief  end  of  man,  and  that  until  it  Is  finished  the 
word  will  never  be  fully  definable.  To  define  spir- 
ituality to  a  materialistic  temperament  is  like  de- 
fining fatherhood  to  a  reckless  boy.  You  can  tell 
him  that  it  is  something  Infinitely  noble  and  beau- 


PREFACE  VU 

tiful  which  he  has  not  yet  attained,  and  which  no 
man  fully  appreciates;  that  is  about  all. 

But  at  such  a  time  as  this  it  must  be  clearer  than 
ever  before  to  any  religiously  minded  person  that 
all  questions  which  are  at  bottom  spiritual  are  im- 
portant. One  of  these  is  the  question  of  Sabbath 
observance.  Spiritually  apprehended,  Sabbathism 
becomes  of  timely,  vital,  practical  significance  to 
the  twentieth  century.  Spiritually  discerned,  the 
question  of  Sabbath  reform  becomes  a  large  ques- 
tion. It  no  longer  appears  a  small,  or  legalistic, 
or  casuistical,  or  ceremonial  issue.  It  instantly 
transcends  sectarianism.  It  becomes,  not  a 
question  of  formal  deeds,  but  a  question  as 
to  what  men  shall  be  at  heart.  It  is  in- 
separable from  the  struggle  between  flesh  and 
spirit,  between  naturalism  and  a  spiritual  philosophy 
of  life.  It  is  the  question  whether  time  is  merely 
a  metaphysical  puzzle,  or  whether  men  can  trans- 
cend time  by  consecrating  it,  and  live  in  the  eternal 
while  yet  in  time.  Sabbath  reform  in  the  twentieth 
century  can  mean  nothing  less  than  this.  In  this 
century  three  words  are  on  trial  for  their  life — 
the  words  "sacred,"  "eternal,"  and  "Sabbath." 
Most  Christians  probably  think  that  the  fate  of  the 
last  word  has  already  been  settled  adversely,  and 
that  of  the  first  two  favorably.      But  to  think  so  is 


Vlll  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

to  be  at  ease  in  Zion;  it  is  to  be  ignorant  of  the 
powerful  silent  influences  which  are  slowly  substitut- 
ing other  terms,  "more  scientific"  terms,  for  "sa- 
cred", and  are  modifying  "eternal"  till  it  will  fit 
a  godless  universe. 

In  preparing  to  write  this  book  I  sent  certain 
inquiries  to  men  of  various  denominational  connec- 
tions, unlike  my  own.  Thirty  answers  are  before 
me,  from  the  ablest  representatives  of  Protestant 
Christianity,  teachers  in  the  strongest  theological 
seminaries  in  the  United  States.     I  wrote: 

"Dear  Brother: 

"I  am  at  work  on  a  book  on  the  religious  and 
spiritual  value  of  Sabbathism.  My  purpose  is  to 
aid  in  uplifting  the  question  of  Sabbath  reform  to  a 
higher  plane,  and  to  show  that  Sabbath  observance 
has  the  highest  pragmatic  value  in  the  development 
of  Christian  character  and  spiritual  life.  In  view 
of  the  vital  interest  involved,  I  venture  to  ask  your 
aid  through  your  own  helpful  suggestions  and 
through  such  books  or  other  literature  as  you  may 
recommend.  I  seek  the  broadest  view  touching  Sab- 
bath observance  and  Sabbathism,  whether  the  sev- 
enth day  or  the  first  day  be  considered  as  sacred, 
or  whether  all  days  be  considered  equal  and  alike 
in  the  matter  of  Sabbath  observance.  Questions: 
(i)  Is  Sabbath  observance  an  essential  element  in 
Christianity?      (2)   Do  Protestants  need  a  higher 


PREFACE  IX 

estimate  of  Sabbath  observance  and  a  better  con- 
ception of  Its  value  in  developing  and  promoting 
spiritual  life?  (3)  If  these  are  needed,  how  can 
they  be  attained?  (4)  Considering  present  tenden- 
cies, what  results  are  likely  to  come  If  a  higher  esti- 
mate of  the  religious  and  spiritual  value  of  Sabbath 
observance  is  not  secured?" 

All  the  answers  to  the  first  question  were  In  the 
affirmative.  In  some  cases  the  writers  defined  "es- 
sential" negatively,  saying  that  Sabbath  observance 
— based  on  legislation  human  or  divine — is  not 
essential  as  faith  in  Christ  Is  essential,  but  that  in 
its  practical,  vital  relations  to  the  life,  growth,  and 
perpetuity  of  the  Christian  church,  it  Is  essential. 
In  most  of  the  answers  it  was  held  or  implied  that 
no  specific  day  of  the  week  is  Important,  one  day 
in  seven  being  sufficient. 

The  answers  to  the  second  question  were  em- 
phatically In  the  affirmative. 

The  answers  to  the  third  question  called  for  clear, 
vigorous,  and  frequent  instruction  from  Protestant 
pulpits  concerning  the  religious  value  of  Sabbath 
observance.  It  was  held  that  fearless  preaching 
of  fundamental  doctrines  concerning  sin  and  right- 
eousness, grace  and  repentance,  would  tone  up  weak 
consciences  and  promote  Sabbath  observance. 


X  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

The  answers  to  the  fourth  question  showed  a 
clear  consensus  of  opinion  that  present  tendencies 
toward  Sabbathlessness  must  result  disastrously  to 
Christianity.  "Physical  and  spiritual  decline  will, 
I  fear,  result  to  individuals,  communities,  and  na- 
tions." "There  will  be  a  decline  of  spiritual  power, 
increase  of  worldliness,  postponement  of  the  millen- 
nium." "The  growth  of  the  church  will  be  retarded 
and  its  life  endangered."  "Unless  the  Sabbath  is 
properly  appreciated  and  observed  in  our  American 
life,  our  institutions  will  be  imperiled.  The  loss  of 
the  Sabbath  will  mean,  in  large  part,  the  loss  of  our 
civilization."  "It  is  certain,  in  my  judgment,  that, 
if  Sabbath  observance  is  not  carefully  maintained, 
the  spiritual  life  of  the  church  will  be  seriously  im- 
paired." "The  consequence  would  be  a  less  vital 
Christianity."  "If  a  better  and  more  general  ob- 
servance of  the  Sabbath  be  not  secured,  we  are 
certain  to  see,  and  speedily,  the  decline  of  spiritual 
religion,  then  the  decay  of  morality,  then  the  sub- 
version of  our  civil  liberty."  "There  will  result 
nervous  prostration  of  our  race,  further  inroads 
upon  the  social  rights  of  those  who  toil,  and  dulling 
of  the  ethical  and  religious  instincts."  "There  will 
be  increase  of  present  stress  and  strain,  and  a 
greater  number  of  suicides."  "The  danger  seems 
to  me  that  we  shall  become  a  nation  of  material- 


PREFACE  XI 

ists."  "I  regret  the  lack  of  interest  in  these  things. 
I  share  the  consequent  perplexity  of  the  day.  It 
seems  futile  to  say  that  we  have  fallen  upon  a  strange 
period,  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  times  is  at  once 
educational  and  unspiritual." 

These  answers  enable  us  to  see  the  situation 
through  the  eyes  of  men  who  are  thoughtful  con- 
cerning the  great  issues  involved.  They  ought  to 
arrest  attention,  compel  consideration,  and  induce 
action  on  the  part  of  Christian  men,  and  especially 
Christian  leaders. 

If  there  is  to  be  Sabbath  reform,  we  can  all  agree 
that  its  watchword  must  be,  Back  to  Christ !  Around 
no  other  banner  can  we  rally.  From  no  other  source 
can  we  derive  the  tremendous  energy  which  will  be 
needed.  There  are  differences  of  opinion  as  to 
Christ's  Sabbathism,  and  of  the  relation  of  his  resur- 
rection to  the  Sabbath.  But  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion that  if  there  is  to  be  cooperation  or  reform, 
the  person  of  the  Christ  must  be  made  central. 

Our  task,  then,  since  the  question  of  sacred  time 
is  involved,  must  be  nothing  less  than  to  consider 
anew  the  concepts  of  the  temporal  and  the  eternal 
as  related  to  the  Christ.  To  do  this  we  must  begin 
with  a  clear  perception  of  the  importance  of  both 
experiences — that  of  time  and  that  of  eternity;  we 
must  trace  the  antithesis  in  religious  history  and  in 


XU  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

philosophy,  and  decide  how,  if  at  all,  there  may  be 
a  living  reconciliation  between  the  concepts  of  time 
and  eternity;  we  must  look  to  the  Scriptures  for  an 
interpretation  of  the  problem  and  its  profound  re- 
lation to  the  Christ.  This  being  done,  we  shall 
be  in  a  position  to  estimate  the  subsequent  history 
of  Christianity,  and  to  meet  the  present  situation. 
Shall  we  indeed  find  in  the  Christ  the  very  spirit  and 
secret  of  Spiritual  Sabbathism,  or  has  Christianity 
pinned  its  faith  to  an  unimportant  Jewish  reformer 
named  Jesus? 


EDITORIAL  NOTE. 


When  the  death  of  the  lamented  author  of  this 
book  occurred,  November  3,  1908,  the  first  draft 
had  been  completed  and  the  revision  begun.  The 
work  of  revision  has  been  completed  by  one  of  the 
author's  executors,  his  son,  Mr.  E.  H.  Lewis.  It 
was  the  editor's  understanding  that  the  revision  was 
to  include  the  expansion  of  the  earlier  chapters  and 
the  condensation  of  the  later  chapters.  To  this 
task,  therefore,  he  has  applied  himself,  though  real- 
lizing  that  unconscious  changes  of  style  were  often 
unavoidable.  At  his  request  the  undersigned  com- 
mittee of  the  publishers  have  compared  the  com- 
pleted work  with  the  first  draft,  and  find  that  the 
revision  has  been  performed  with  conscientious  re- 
gard to  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  author. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  Appendix.  This  is 
designed  to  contain  all  necessary  notes  and  ref- 
erences.     But  neither  foot-notes  nor  index-numbers 


xiv  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

will  be  found  in  the  text,  since  it  is  desired  that  the 
reader's  attention  shall  not  needlessly  be  diverted 
from  the  argument. 

Theo.  L.  Gardiner, 

Editor  of  The  Sabbath  Recorder. 

Arthur  E.  Main, 

Dean  of  Alfred  Theological  Seminary. 

William  C.  Daland, 

President  of  Milton  College. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Preface    v 

Editorial  Note xiii 

I  The  Temporal  and  the  Eternal         3-60 
§1.     Importance  of  the  contrast  ...  3 

§2.     The  contrast  in  animism 7 

§3.  The  contrast  in  mythology  ...  13 
§4.     The  contrast  in  astrology  ....        20 

§5.     The  contrast  in  religion 30 

§6.  The  contrast  in  philosophy  ...  38 
§7.     The  intellectual  dilemma 56 

II  Biblical  Sabbathism 61-121 

§8.     The  spiritual  power  of  Hebra- 
ism          61 

§9.  The  fourth  commandment  ...  64 
§10.  The  work  and  the  rest  of  God  83 
§11.  Creation  and  redemption   ....        91 

§12.  The  root  of  authority 105 

§13.  The  Sabbathism  of  the  Psalms  108 

§14.  The  Pharisees in 

§15.  The  Christ    116 

III  No-Sabbathism  and  the  Sunday  122-156 
§16.  The  resurrection  of  the  sun  .  .  122 


XVI  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

§17.  The  Sunday  of  MIthra 129 

§18.   Mythology  re-enters  as  Gnosti- 
cism      135 

§19.  Jehovah  rejected  as  the  Demi- 
urge    144 

§20.  Justin,  TertuUian,  the  Didache  145 

§21.  Sunday  legislation  begins   ....  154 

IV  Sabbatarianism   157-179 

§22.  Roman  Catholic    157 

§23.  Rejected  by  the  Reformers  .  .  .  164 

§24.  Puritan    173 

V  The  Present  Situation 180-202 

§25.  The  decay  of  Sunday 180 

§26.  How    can   we    attain   Spiritual 

Sabbathism?     188 

§27.  Protestants  must  lead 194 

Appendix:  Notes  and  References 203-221 


(O 


SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 


Chapter  I. 
THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL. 

§1.  Importance  of  the  contrast. — The  antithesis 
between  the  transitory  and  the  enduring  is  possibly 
the  most  important  contrast  used  by  man.  Every 
practical  value  can  be  read  in  terms  of  these  two 
words.  Whatever  worth  inheres  in  money  or  prog- 
ress or  law  or  goodness  or  affection — that  worth 
can  in  some  sense  be  measured  by  its  degree  of  per- 
manence in  time. 

Mystics  and  men  of  affairs  have  alike  admitted 
this.  Kings  have  been  great  in  proportion  as  they 
built  for  the  future.  States  have  been  valuable  in  pro- 
portion as  they  were  stable.  Scripture  is  precious,  be- 
cause, though  the  grass  withereth  and  the  flower  fad- 
eth,  the  words  of  God  have  endured.  Song  has  been 
cherished  because  it  permanently  enshrined  some 
human  joy,  or  "some  natural  sorrow,  loss,  or  pain 
which  has  been  and  may  be  again."  Great  pictures 
have  become  too  dear  to  be  sold,  because  they  have 
caught  the  happy  moment,  or  the  beloved  face,  or 

3 


4  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

the  thrilling  ideal,  out  of  the  stream  of  time,  and 
made  it  forever  fair  and  young.  Sculpture  still 
brings  to  us  a  sense  of  divine  repose,  for  the  Greeks 
knew  how  to  set  eternity  in  the  brows  and  eyes  of 
Jove.  And,  conversely,  great  men  were  great  be- 
cause they  brought  a  permanent  purpose  to  bear 
upon  the  transitory  moment.  They  have  known 
that  the  eternal  is  always  applicable  here  and  now, 
in  these  troublous  hours  and  this  obscure  place.  "A 
moment,"  said  Goethe,  "can  be  made  representative 
of  eternity."  "This  is  eternal  life,"  said  our  Lord. 
At  the  heart  of  every  labor  worthy  of  a  man  there 
is  an  effort  to  endow  and  dignify  the  fleeting  moment 
with  permanent  value.  It  is  something  for  Cheops 
to  have  built  thirteen  acres  of  stone  into  a  tomb — 
though  now  the  tomb  is  empty.  It  is  something 
for  Homer  to  have  planted  Olympus  in  the  midst 
of  time,  even  though  his  beautiful  immortals  per- 
ished after  one  thousand  of  the  world's  many  thou- 
sand years.  It  is  something  for  Heraclitus  to  have 
left  us  the  lasting  verses  which  lament  that  nothing 
lasts.  It  is  more  to  have  formed  an  eternal  purpose 
like  Paul's,  and  to  have  endured  to  the  end.  But 
define  the  eternal  how  you  will,  you  can  not  oust  it 
from  art,  or  morality,  or  statecraft — much  less  from 
religion.     The  essence  of  valuable  living  is  in  some 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL       5 

way  to  bring  time  and  eternity  together;  to  relate 
them;  to  make  them  interpenetrate. 

When  we  speculate  systematically  about  time  and 
eternity,  we  meet  with  tremendous  technical  prob- 
lems, and  are  in  danger  of  losing  the  practical  im- 
portance of  the  contrast.  In  this  book  we  are  not 
to  speculate,  but  we  are  to  summarize  some  of  the 
speculations  of  the  past  in  order  to  emphasize  two 
distinctions — that  between  speculation  and  spiritual- 
ity, and  that  between  carnal  living  and  spiritual 
living.  Let  there  be  no  mistake  as  to  the  final 
purpose  and  upshot  of  our  inquiry.  It  is  intensely 
practical.  Though  at  times  the  distinctions  made 
may  seem  unreal,  they  are  such  as  concern  the  battle 
of  life,  and  in  that  battle  they  are  to  be  tested.  We 
seek  a  practical  adjustment  of  the  temporal  and  the 
eternal.  The  search  is  not  new.  From  the  first 
minute  of  recorded  time  the  search  has  been  going 
on,  and  the  path  of  it  is  marked  not  only  by  hope 
and  joy  but  by  blood  and  tears. 

We  begin  our  search  with  an  examination  of 
primitive  thought.  We  ask  how  "savages"  have 
dimly  struggled  upward  toward  the  contrast  between 
the  temporal  and  the  eternal.  We  shall  use  the 
headings  "animism,"  "mythology,"  and  "astrology," 
though  these  are  all  phases  of  the  same  thing.  By 
animism  we  shall  mean  the  peopling  of  nature  with 


6  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

a  multitude  of  souls;  by  mythology,  the  effort  of 
primitive  men  to  explain  the  origin  of  things;  by 
astrology,  the  effort  to  relate  the  enduring  heavenly 
bodies  to  the  practical  needs  of  mortal  man. 

The  crudeness  and  grossness  of  primitive  thought 
can  not  hide  a  certain  thread  of  the  spiritually  per- 
manent in  that  thought.  Why  it  was  necessary  for 
man  to  develop  slowly  in  time  it  is  not  for  us  to 
say;  it  is  God's  method  for  man,  and  only  the  spir- 
itual philosophy  of  the  future  can  explain  it.  But 
the  law  is  certain — first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then 
the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  And  it  is  a  very  great 
error  to  lament  the  principle.  The  whole  of  life, 
the  joy  of  it  as  well  as  the  sorrow,  springs  from  the 
upward  struggle.  The  helpless  babe  does  not  sug- 
gest the  great  man  which  he  may  become  within  a 
half  century  of  earth's  years,  but  the  potencies  of 
greatness  are  in  the  babe.  In  the  childhood  of  the 
race,  too,  there  are  spiritual  potencies.  In  the 
tropical  forest  of  primitive  thought  there  is  one  tree 
which  overtops  the  rest.  The  tangled  undergrowth 
is  primitive  knowledge;  the  towering  tree  is  the 
aspiration  of  man  toward  God. 

From  the  beginning  there  is  communion  of  man 
with  God.  It  is  such  communion  as  the  little  child 
may  hold  with  his  father — a  communication  full  of 
minor   misunderstandings   but   of   essential   reality. 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL       7 

Primitive  thought  is  God's  spiritual  kindergarten 
for  the  race.  The  very  likeness  which  exists  in 
all  primitive  thought  shows  this.  Need  is  one,  the 
world  over.  Naturalistic  philosophy  asserts  that 
the  brain  is  a  machine  which  grinds  out  the  same 
phenomena,  wherever  it  is.  But  men  are  not  auto- 
mata. God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  men  to 
dwell  upon  the  earth,  and  he  is  their  God.  If  we 
are  to  be  likened  to  mechanisms  at  all,  let  us  be 
likened  to  the  instruments  of  wireless  telegraphy. 
There  is  some  spiritual  attunement  among  all  men, 
and  between  each  one  and  God.  There  must  be 
intercommunication;  continents  can  not  divide  us, 
nor  the  deep  abyss  of  heaven. 

§2.  The  contrast  in  animism. — Viewed  as  an- 
imism, primitive  thought  peoples  nature  with  in- 
numerable minds.  Once  the  world  was  full  of 
"momentary"  gods — parts  of  it  still  are.  The 
savage  imagines  a  soul  to  rest  for  a  moment  in  an 
object,  and  so  consecrate  it.  The  fetish  is  preserved 
in  the  hope  that  the  soul  may  again  return,  and  it 
is  sometimes  threatened  with  punishment  if  the  soul 
fails  to  return.  At  the  next  stage  of  development, 
the  more  important  objects  of  nature  are  hallowed 
by  the  permanent  residence  of  a  god.  What  is  there 
in  nature  which  has  not,  at  some  time,  in  some 
place,  in  some  sense  been  considered  sacred?     Sun, 


8  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

moon,  stars,  sky,  air,  clouds,  thunder,  water,  ocean, 
lakes,  rivers,  springs,  wells,  earth,  mountains,  high 
places,  caverns,  stones,  trees,  graves,  houses,  hours, 
days,  weeks,  months,  years,  the  chieftain,  the  king, 
the  medicine  man,  the  shaman,  the  priest,  the  woman 
consecrated  to  a  god,  statues,  images,  amulets,  the 
dishes  touched  by  a  consecrated  person,  the  ant,  the 
ass,  the  bat,  the  bear,  the  bee,  the  beetle,  the  bull, 
the  butterfly,  the  cat,  the  cow,  the  coyote,  the  crab, 
the  crocodile,  the  crow,  the  deer,  the  dog — and  so 
on  through  the  alphabet  of  animals — all  these  things 
and  more  have  been  held  sacred.  And  what  has 
been  the  fate  of  most  of  them?  The  sacredness  of 
most  of  these  things  has  been  destroyed  by  time. 
They  were  all  perceived  at  last  to  have  been  but 
momentary  gods,  and  therefore  not  gods  at  all. 
Time,  in  large  amounts,  is  the  essence  of  any  con- 
tract with  a  god.  And  time  is  precisely  what  the 
false  gods  have  not  been  able  to  assure;  there  came  a 
day  for  each  when  they  could  not  keep  their  promise. 
This  is  why  so  many  scientific  men  have  no  con- 
fidence in  the  future  of  any  religion.  They  say 
that  religion  has  had  its  turn  at  the  wheel,  and  has 
failed  to  guide  men  Into  the  haven.  They  say  that 
time  has  overthrown  the  proudest  religious  systems 
of  antiquity,  and  will  strip  the  last  vestige  of  sacred- 
ness from  those  which  now  exist.      They  say  that 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  9 

animism  and  religion  are  merely  obsolete  science. 

If  these  were  mere  assertions  of  polemists,  we 
might  cheerfully  pass  them  by.  But  the  historical 
tendency  is  obvious  and  undeniable.  Whatever  our 
own  security  of  belief,  we  can  not  escape  the  question 
as  to  the  future  fate  of  the  sentiment  of  sacredness. 
The  great  question  of  the  future  is  whether  any- 
thing is  sacred  or  can  be  made  sacred. 

In  civilized  countries  no  animal  is  today  consid- 
ered sacred,  and  many  species  have  been  exterminat- 
ed. In  Christian  lands,  as  in  non-Christian,  the 
person  of  the  king  was  once  considered  sacred;  now 
it  is  caricatured  in  popular  journals.  We  mourn 
in  American  youth  the  lack  of  reverence,  but  why 
in  youth  alone?  "Reverence,"  said  a  serious  and 
able  Englishman  to  Professor  Bosanquet,  "is 
a  thing  I  can  not  understand."  I  suppose  he  meant 
that  in  science,  in  politics,  in  religion,  nothing  is 
intrinsically  sacred;  everything  must  submit  to  rea- 
son. To  this  serious  and  able  Englishman  reason 
was  probably  to  be  revered — though  one  must  speak 
with  caution  as  to  just  what  he  meant. 

But  consider  again  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and 
the  sacredness  of  their  persons.  Do  we  imagine 
that  the  sentiment  which  produced  that  faith  was 
a  slight  force?  On  the  contrary,  It  dates  back  to  a 
time  when  sacredness  was  the  greatest  of  forces. 


lO  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

It  dates  back  to  the  taboo.  A  thing  tabooed  is  at 
once  blessed  and  cursed,  it  is  sacro-sanct.  Amid  such 
things  the  savage  lived.  Every  act  of  his  life  was 
governed  by  them.  Religion,  such  as  it  was,  was 
the  very  essence  of  his  conduct.  Half  of  the  things 
that  we  do  were  forbidden  him.  If  by  accident  he 
ate  of  the  chieftain's  food,  which  is  sacro-sanct,  and 
then  learned  whose  food  it  was,  he  died  of  fear. 
If  the  medicine  man  cursed  him,  the  same  result 
followed.  We  can  catch  glimpses  of  this  terrible 
energy  in  the  case  of  peoples  suddenly  civilized. 
A  few  years  ago  the  person  of  the  Mikado  was 
sacro-sanct,  and  any  dish  that  he  touched  must  be 
broken  after  he  used  it,  must  be  broken  because 
a  taboo  dish  is  dangerous.  Before  the  Japanese 
have  lost  this  sense  of  the  Mikado's  sacredness,  be- 
fore they  have  ceased  to  feel  that  he  may  demand 
the  life  of  any  subject,  before  he  has  ceased  to  sym- 
bolize all  that  is  dear  to  his  subjects — a  great  war 
comes.  The  Japanese  have  meantime  suddenly 
learned  chemistry,  engineering,  modern  military 
practice.  Young  Japan  goes  forth  to  die  for  the 
Emperor,  and  ends  by  routing  a  Christian  nation's 
forces. 

But  for  what  will  Japan  fight  when  the  Mikado 
shall  no  longer  have  the  sacred  right  to 
command     men's     lives?        The     Japanese     have 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  1 1 

embraced  science.  But  science,  as  Laplace 
said,  does  not  need  the  hypothesis  of  God, 
and  to  scientific  method  nothing  is  intrinsically 
sacred.  The  world's  debt  to  science  is  beyond  cal- 
culation, but  it  is  awkward  that  the  principle  of 
Laplace  fits  crime  as  neatly  as  it  fits  science.  Let 
us  grant  that  for  free  and  unimpeded  progress  of 
science  the  hypothesis  of  God  is  not  needed.  We 
must  also  grant  that  the  hypothesis  of  God  is  not 
needed  for  the  free  and  unimpeded  progress  of 
crime.  It  is  awkward  company  for  so  admirable 
a  personage  as  science  to  be  in.  We  can  not  infer 
that  progress  in  science  means  progress  in  crime. 
Therefore  we  must  assume  that  in  proportion  as 
science  rejects  the  idea  of  sacredness  she  offers  or 
recognizes  some  substitute  for  it.  What  will  that 
substitute  be?  What  will  the  scientific  Japanese 
of  the  future  die  for?  Will  it  be  for  policy?  utility? 
the  scientifically  advisable? 

There  is  a  saying  of  the  Christ  that  the  Son  of 
Man  is  lord  even  of  the  Sabbath  day.  And  now 
comes  a  school  of  distinguished  Aramaic  scholars 
who  assure  us  that  in  the  language  of  Christ  "Son 
of  man"  means  simply  "man."  I  do  not 
accept  this  version  of  the  word.  But  the 
idea  that  man  is  the  lord  of  the  Sabbath 
is   an   idea   so   congenial  to   contemporary  thought 


12  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

that  in  logic  its  defenders  should  extend  it 
to  every  institution  which  claims  divine  sanction. 
If  man  is  lord  of  one  religious  institution,  why  not  of 
all?  Why  should  marriage  be  celebrated  by  priests, 
or  burial  be  solemnized  by  the  clergy?  Mother- 
hood, fatherhood,  the  helplessness  of  children,  the 
memory  of  the  noble  dead,  promises,  chastity,  truth 
— these  things  we  are  wont  to  call  sacred.  But 
are  they  perhaps  merely  matters  of  policy?  If  man 
is  "lord"  of  religious  institutions,  then  he  is  com- 
petent to  abolish  the  marriage  institution  or  any 
other  institution  human  or  divine.  He  is  lord  of 
everything  ever  called  sacred  in  human  life.  It  is 
an  immense  responsibility. 

Is  it  possible  to  believe  that  "lordship"  over  what 
is  sacred  will  ever  result  in  the  abolition  of  the  sen- 
timent? We  can  not  think  that  the  time  will  ever 
come  when  men  shall  cease  to  feel  that  some  things, 
some  times,  are  more  sacred  than  others.  The 
hour  when  the  boy  knelt  at  his  mother's 
knee;  the  hour  when  the  man  looked  into 
his  child's  dying  eyes;  the  hour  when  the  sinner 
struggled  up  from  baseness  and  consecrated  him- 
self to  a  new  life — these  hours  are  sabbatic  as  com- 
pared with  the  hours  of  moral  chaos  or  of  emptv 
barrenness  which  preceded  them.  Take  away  such 
hours  from  life,  secularize  life  to  the  extreme,  and 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      1 3 

life  would  not  be  worth  living.  Men  will  not  be 
content  to  face  death  in  such  a  mood,  to  pass  from 
a  secular  life  into  a  secular  silence. 

But  false  gods  will  continue  to  expire  at  the  touch 
of  time.  The  name  of  sacred  will  not  forever 
attach  to  things  which  are  essentially  impermanent. 
The  eloquent  silence  of  oblivion  will  be  God's  only 
comment  upon  every  institution  which  fails  to  satisfy 
the  soul's  hunger  for  God. 

§3.  The  contrast  in  mythology. — Mythology  is 
very  largely,  though  not  wholly,  a  speculation  on 
the  origin  of  things.  A  "myth"  is  a  "word,"  or 
story.  It  is  a  word  about  the  gods  rather  than  a 
word  from  them  or  a  word  to  them.  It  is  a  story 
about  how  the  gods  produced  the  present  state  of 
things.  It  is  not  an  appeal  to  the  gods  for  help,  com- 
fort, courage.  The  savage  whose  prayer  is  brief 
and  earnest  will  not  hesitate,  in  colder  mood,  to 
spin  an  endless  tale  of  the  creation.  The  distinc- 
tion is  significant.  Our  secular  and  our  scientific 
moods  are  allied  to  the  relatively  cold  mood  of 
mythology. 

The  keynote  of  mythology  is  multiplicity.  Every 
object  in  nature  must  be  explained,  and  its  origin 
may  recede  indefinitely,  precisely  as  origins  recede 
in  science.  Therefore  the  literature  of  mythology 
is  vast,  and  is  constantly  growing  as  anthropological 


14  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

science  reports  new  finds.  George  Eliot  showed 
scholarship  and  humor  when  she  made  her  Mr. 
Casaubon  die  before  his  great  "Key  to  All  Mytholo- 
gies" was  fairly  begun.  Merely  to  read  through 
the  long  list  of  human  races  in  Quatrefages  gives 
one  a  sense  of  shock,  and  makes  one  feel  a  stranger 
in  the  earth.  If  then  we  recall  that  each  race  has 
not  one  but  several  mythical  explanations  of  every 
bird,  animal,  and  tribe,  we  see  that  finite  man  pre- 
sents an  infinite  variety  of  problems.  Each  mythol- 
ogy rests  upon  an  earlier  one,  represents  a  reform. 
We  can  understand  the  noble  Greek  Zeus  as  he  was 
explained  by  Greek  philosophers  and  dramatists;  but 
we  can  not  understand  the  ignoble  Zeus  of  obscure 
Greek  legend,  or  the  Zeus  whose  grave  was  shown 
in  Crete,  except  as  we  appreciate  that  mythology  was 
one  long  series  of  prehistoric  reforms  in  scientific 
thought.  The  history  of  modern  science  is  strewn 
with  abandoned  hypotheses.  The  history  of  ancient 
science  is  strewn  with  abandoned  creators.  Zeus 
has  died  not  merely  in  Crete  but  in  a  thousand  other 
places. 

'  His  grave  might  even  be  shown  in  America.  In 
fact  this  whole  hemisphere,  nine  thousand  miles  long. 
Is  the  grave  of  a  race  of  creators.  In  Curtin's 
"American  Creation-Myths,"  or  in  Brinton's  various 
books,  one  can  read  how  vast  was  the  system  which 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      1 5 

was  understood  on  this  continent  by  scores  of 
aboriginal  tribes.  The  theory  of  our  red  brothers 
was  in  general  this :  America  was  once  Inhabited  by 
a  race  of  perfect  men,  utterly  different  from  those 
now  living.  They  were  godlike  and  divine;  they 
were  the  gods.  At  length  however  they  began  to 
break  their  perfect  brotherly  love  with  quarrels, 
and  this  evil  fact  itself  reacted  upon  them  and 
changed  them.  Some  were  changed  to  birds,  some  to 
animals,  some  to  trees,  some  to  mountains.  If  we 
start  with  any  given  creature  we  can  follow  back  to 
its  human-divine  origin.  Each  is  the  result  of  a 
fall.  The  myth-makers  can  tell  the  story  in  every 
case,  and  the  name  of  the  stories  is  legion.  How 
such  a  system  throws  light  upon  man's  ethical  na- 
ture 1  It  does  not  explain  the  bird  or  beast,  but  it 
throws  light  upon  man.  It  is  useless  for  man  to 
deny  moral  responsibility.  He  knows  that  he  can 
fall  from  grace.  And  mythology,  like  a  vast  lum- 
inous projection  of  his  soul  upon  the  sky,  shows 
these  spiritual  facts  within  the  soul. 

Only  one  of  the  myriads  of  creation-myths  bears 
directly  on  our  investigations.  This  is  the  Baby- 
lonian, which  was  discovered  in  1875  by  George 
Smith  on  a  series  of  clay  tablets  which  are  now  pre- 
served in  the  British  museum.  It  is  a  highly  poly- 
theistic story,  as  befitted  a  nation  which  recognized 


1 6  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

sixty  thousand  gods  or  more.  It  records  a  strife 
between  the  dragon  of  chaos  (Tiamat)  and  the  gods. 
The  gods,  led  by  Marduk,  are  victorious.  Marduk 
splits  the  dragon  in  twain,  as  one  splits  a  flat  fish, 
and  of  the  two  parts  makes  heaven  and  earth. 
Much  ingenuity  has  been  expended  to  trace  the  crea- 
tion-story of  Genesis  to  this  source.  Later  we  shall 
consider  this  matter  in  its  spiritual  significance,  and 
show  that  the  Hebraic  story  is  partly  a  criticism  of 
mythology,  partly  something  more  profound.  Un- 
doubtedly some  West  Semitic  variant  of  the  myth 
was  known  to  the  early  Hebrews,  and  undoubtedly  it 
was  the  task  of  the  prophets  to  disillusion  their  hear- 
ers' minds  concerning  it.  Dragon  worship,  star 
worship,  moon  worship,  Baal  worship — the  strug- 
gle against  these  makes  half  the  history  of  Israel. 
Babylonian,  Canaanitish,  and  Assyrian  ideas  were 
only  too  influential  among  the  less  spiritually  minded 
Hebrews,  as  we  know  from  the  burning  words  of 
the  prophets.  We  can  guess  at  the  force  to  be  com- 
bated when  we  learn,  from  the  wonderful  Tel  el- 
Amarna  tablets,  discovered  In  1887,  that  a  king  of 
Jerusalem  (Urusalim)  wrote  in  the  Babylonian  lan- 
guage to  his  Egyptian  overlord  in  the  fifteenth 
century  before  Christ. 

As  we  recall  the  burning  words  directed  by  the 
prophets  against  false  gods,  we  must  admit  that 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  1 7 

the  temporal  element  In  mythology  is  vast  and  hate- 
ful. Much  of  what  was  permitted  in  prehistoric 
days  becomes  ghastly  under  a  fuller  spiritual  light. 

But  we  can  not  deny  a  certain  slender  thread 
of  spiritual  reality  in  mythology.  When  the 
Aztecs  believed  that  maize  was  once  a  god 
who  gave  his  life  that  men  might  eat  him  and  live, 
we  must  say  that  this  creation-myth  dimly  fore- 
shadowed the  true  bread  of  life,  which  cometh  down 
out  of  heaven.  When  the  Aztecs  solemnly  ate  lit- 
tle cakes  of  maize  in  honor  of  the  self-slain  god,  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  were  in  terror,  for  they  believed 
that  Satan  was  luring  the  poor  savages  Into  blas- 
phemy against  the  holy  eucharlst.  But  if  the  be- 
loved disciple  John  had  been  the  missionary,  he 
would  have  smiled  gently  and  said,  "He  was  in  the 
world,  and  the  world  was  made  through  him,  and 
the  world  knew  him  not." 

The  truly  scientific  explanation  of  things  does  not 
attempt  to  reach  beginnings.  It  is  content  to  carry 
the  research  back  step  by  step  through  natural 
causes,  and  to  rest  content  when  the  limits  of  knowl- 
edge are  reached.  And  Its  method  Is  Impersonal. 
It  can  not  work  with  spirits  that  interrupt  the  chain 
of  law.  This  fact  has  brought  anxiety  to  the  re- 
ligious mind,  but  it  is  a  needless  anxiety.  The  final 
aim  of  science  Is  not  metaphysical,  but  practical.    It 


1 8  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

uses  impersonal  methods  to  personal  ends.  The 
physican's  only  interest  in  the  abstract  formula  is 
to  save  personal  life.  And  so,  while  creation-myths 
are  not  literally  true,  they  are  dim  gropings  after 
truth.  As  science  they  are  transitory;  but  there  is 
in  each  some  parable,  some  assurance  that  the  origin 
of  things  is  not  blind  force  or  fate.  Slowly,  slowly 
have  men  developed  in  time,  yet,  from  the  beginning, 
without  a  parable  spoke  He  not  unto  them. 

We  do  not  deny  that  modern  science  has  some- 
times failed  to  see  her  own  limited  purpose.  She 
has  sometimes  erected  her  impersonal  principles  into 
gods.  Speaking  for  the  scientific  men  of  his  day, 
Huxley  bravely  says:  "Most  of  us  are  idolaters, 
and  ascribe  divine  powers  to  the  abstractions  Force, 
Gravity,  Vitality,  which  our  own  brains  have  creat- 
ed." When  this  happens,  mythology  returns. 
Then  the  fight  between  the  transitory  abstraction 
and  the  eternally  spiritual  must  be  renewed. 

Surely  we  have  offered  good  reasons  for  dis- 
criminating between  the  transitory  and  the  perma- 
nent in  mythology.  Yet  doubtless  we  must  contend 
with  opposition  both  from  the  religious  and  from  the 
scientific  side.  The  one  will  accuse  us  of  defending 
"superstitions";  the  other  of  defending  "survivals". 
Well,  superstition  is  superstitio,  a  thing  left  over. 
But  if  in  what  is  left  over  there  is  any  spiritual 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      1 9 

nutrition,  it  is  for  us  to  gather  up  the  fragments 
of  the  bread  of  life,  that  nothing  be  lost.  And  as 
to  "survivals",  that  bugbear  of  the  pseudo-scientific 
mind,  we  point  out  emphatically  that  science  has 
dogmatized  about  "the  survival  of  the  fittest."  She 
has  said  that  in  nature  only  the  fit  survives;  but, 
to  science,  thought  is  a  part  of  nature.  Therefore 
science  faces  the  paradox  that  only  superstitions  are 
fit  to  survive.  Let  her  explain  her  own  paradox, 
and  we  are  content. 

It  would  be  a  curious  world  if  there  were  no  sur- 
vivals. Roughly  speaking.  Geology  asserts  that 
first  the  algae  and  the  invertebrates  appeared,  then 
the  mosses  and  the  fishes,  then  the  ferns  and  the 
amphibians,  then  the  pines  and  the  reptiles,  then  the 
grains  and  the  birds,  and  lastly  the  mammals.  But 
it  is  only  too  obvious  that  not  merely  the  mammals 
have  survived.  The  mammals  could  not  survive,  in 
fact,  but  for  the  continued  existence  of  the  lower 
forms  of  life.  The  living  fern  and  fish  and  pine  and 
grain  still  serve  us.  Nay,  in  the  form  of  coal,  the 
dead  fern  and  pine  still  serve  us.  And  what  is  true 
here  of  nature  is  true  also  of  thought.  In  thought 
as  in  nature,  the  primitive  we  have  always  with  us. 
And  some  of  the  achievements  of  primitive  thought 
— such  as  the  idea  of  God,  the  idea  of  sacredness, 


20  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

and  the  Idea  of  stern  responsibility — are  to  be  re- 
garded as  precious  and  permanent  achievements. 

Unless  we  recognize  this  fact  and  study  its  mean- 
ing, we  can  not  safely  build  for  the  future.  Our 
religion  ought  to  face  forward;  it  ought  to  leave 
the  dead  past  to  bury  its  dead;  but  in  its  haste  it 
must  not  bury  the  quick  with  the  dead. 

§4.  The  contrast  in  astrology. — The  eighth  Psalm 
is  an  exquisitely  noble  and  spiritual  view  of  man's 
relation  to  the  starry  heavens.  "When  I  behold 
the  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and 
the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man  that 
thou  art  mindful  of  him?  .  .  .  Thou  hast  made  him 
but  little  lower  than  God."  The  second  sentence 
thrills  us  with  a  sense  of  man's  spiritual  possibilities, 
but  the  first  abases  all  pride  of  intellect.  Man  can 
not  divine  the  secrets  of  the  stars,  nor  draw  down 
their  power  by  magic,  nor  use  them  to  penetrate 
the  future.  Man's  power  is  of  the  earth.  There 
he  must  live  and  work.  He  can  not  stand  consider- 
ing the  stars,  wrapped  in  futile  contemplation  of 
possible  disaster  foretold  by  them. 

Yet  in  our  versions  of  Psalm  viii  the  word  "be- 
hold"— raah — is  translated  "consider."  Our  very 
words  betray  the  ancient  power  of  astrology;  for 
to  consider  the  heavens  meant  to  the  Romans  to 
consult  the  constellations   (sidera).       Two    other 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  2 1 

words  used  above  are  of  astrological  origin — "dis- 
aster" and  "contemplation."  A  disaster  is  pro- 
duced by  unfavorable  stars  (aster a).  Contem- 
plation is  consideration  of  the  heavenly  templa.  The 
astrologers  cut  the  heavens  into  "temples",  and  to 
contemplate  is  to  find  one's  magic  hour  within  a 
section  of  the  zodiac.  The  root  which  means  di- 
vide (tern)  appears  in  tempiis,  time,  and  in  templum, 
a  temple  or  place  marked  out  on  earth,  or  in  the 
sky,  or  on  the  side  of  the  human  head,  to  indicate 
our  magic  relations  to  the  celestial  temples. 

We  rightly  and  emphatically  shake  our  heads  at 
astrology.  But  there  are  plenty  of  persons  who 
still  astrologize,  who  still  seek  to  know  the  future 
by  magic  means.  In  any  large  city  of  the  world 
you  can  get  your  future  predicted  by  an  astrologer 
or  a  palmist.  And  many  persons  who  scorn  the 
palmist  astrologize  unconsciously,  as  when  they  fear 
the  terrestrial  effect  of  sun-spots;  or  dread  Friday, 
or  the  number  thirteen,  or  moon-stroke;  or  fancy 
that  they  have  a  lucky  number;  or  respect  predic- 
tions as  to  the  exact  date  of  the  earth's  destruc- 
tion. As  to  that  date,  "none  knoweth  save  the 
Father."  Yet  in  all  ages  the  astrologer  has  pre- 
tended to  know,  and  has  commanded  the  money  of 
the  frightened. 

The  sign  of  Jupiter    {U)    was  considered  aus- 


22  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

piclous,  and  physicians  placed  it  before  their  pre- 
scriptions to  make  them  efficacious.  There  the 
sign  remains  to  this  hour,  though  its  meaning  has 
been  lost;  ancient  conviction  lingers  on  as  a  modern 
habit.  Even  great  men  who  were  by  no  means  cred- 
ulous have  astrologized  instinctively.  It  is  funda- 
mental with  astrology  that  the  star  which  presides 
at  our  birth  affects  our  destiny  on  earth.  Well, 
Napoleon  believed  in  his  star.  Shakespeare  tells 
us  that  the  fault  is  in  ourselves,  not  in  our  stars, 
if  we  are  underlings.  But  our  fate  is  not  wholly 
in  our  hands,  and  when  a  man  feels  himself  borne 
onward  to  great  deeds  and  great  dangers,  he  must 
acknowledge  his  dependence  either  on  nature  or  on 
God. 

We  have  astronomy,  and  for  reasonable  minds 
astrology  is  dead.  We  can  not  say  of  this  dead  only 
that  which  is  good,  but  we  need  not  persecute  the 
dead.  Juvenal  long  ago  admitted,  in  that  tre- 
mendous sixth  satire  against  feminine  credulity,  that 
the  way  to  make  astrology  powerful  is  to  persecute 
it.  We  must  discriminate  between  the  temporal  and 
the  eternal,  even  in  astrology.  The  impulse  of 
it  was  to  grasp  the  relation  between  the  temporal 
and  the  eternal.  The  method  was  to  construct  the 
heavens  as  a  huge  organism  by  analogy  with  the 
earth  and  the  human  body. 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  23 

At  first  the  savage  pays  little  attention  to  the 
heavens;  he  sleeps  at  night,  just  as  most  of  us  do. 
But  gradually  a  sense  of  the  starry  glories  dawns 
upon  him.  The  heavenly  bodies  are  enduring, 
while  men  come  and  go;  sun,  moon,  stars  must  be 
divine.  The  poet  Tennyson,  looking  at  the  heavens 
and  the  earth,  asks  himself  whether,  after  all,  these 
things  are  not  God.  Perhaps  these  fair  and  eternal 
objects  are  God, — only  it  Is  our  doom  to  see 
him  as  these  things.  Perhaps  our  eyes,  which  false- 
ly tell  us  that  far  things  are  small  and  that  parallels 
meet,  play  us  false;  perhaps  It  is  they  which  sunder 
God  into  heaven  and  earth.  The  eye  of  man,  says 
Tennyson,  can  not  really  see;  but  if  It  could,  were 
not  the  Vision — He?  Less  subtly  reflecting,  the 
savage  sees  moon  and  stars  as  actual  gods.  He  is 
too  literal,  and  literalism  Is  the  very  soul  of  astro- 
logy and  magic.      But  he  can  not  help  it. 

For  he  relies  on  the  starry  heavens,  especially 
the  moon  and  the  sun,  as  means  of  thinking.  Their 
permanence  helps  him  at  every  step.  Their  motions 
are  steadier  and  larger  than  his.  At  first  he  paid 
small  attention  to  times.  Life  was  one  long  irre- 
sponsible holiday,  and  hunger  was  his  only  clock. 
But  then  he  perceived  that  the  sun  measures  time; 
the  sun-god  has  daughters,  the  days  and  the  nights. 
He  further  noted  that  some  days  brought  him  joy 


24  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

and  luck,  others  misfortune  and  pain.  Probably 
there  was  magic  In  days.  Perhaps  the  magic  of 
days  could  be  calculated  ahead. 

The  moon  too  was  a  measurer  of  time.  Once 
in  so  often  the  thin  scimitar  of  light  grew  to  maturity 
and  flooded  earth  with  glory.  It  was  a  victory  of 
the  enduring  over  the  transitory.  It  was  the  crea- 
tion of  a  world  of  light.  It  was  a  god  slaying  the 
dragon  of  darkness.  Long  before  Sinai's  red 
granite  flamed  with  Jehovah's  lightning,  the 
mountain  had  its  name  from  the  Arabian 
moon-god.  Sin.  At  his  festival  the  Idols  grew 
darker  and  darker,  only  to  recover  their  bright- 
ness when  the  festival  was  about  to  end.  And  what 
influence  upon  human  life  might  not  these  changes 
of  the  moon  foretell  or  portend?  To  this  day 
the  Mentras  of  the  Malay  peninsula  believe  that 
human  strength  declines  and  recovers  with  the  moon. 
The  savage  could  not  know  our  satellite's  influence 
upon  the  tides ;  he  could  not  see  the  "moon-led  waters 
white"  as  the  poet  or  the  mathematician  sees  them. 
But  the  women  of  Babylonia  knew  that  there  was  a 
mysterious  physical  relation  between  them  and  the 
month,  and  they  worshiped  the  lady  moon  as  the 
queen  of  heaven  and  mother  of  gods.  So  also  did 
the  Grecian  women  until  the  cult  grew  base;  then 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      2$ 

came    a    reform,    and    the    moon-goddess    became 
Diana,  the  virgin. 

The  month,  then,  was  magical  in  its  influence. 
Indeed,  in  certain  languages  we  see  the  power  of 
thought  itself  expressed  in  terms  of  the  moon. 
Metis  is  mind,  and  mensis  is  month.  Men- 
suration is  measure.  Thus  mind  and  month 
are  both  measures.  The  moon  and  the  mind  are 
both  dividers,  and  both  divide  in  order  to  conquer. 
As  for  the  week,  who  shall  say  whether  the 
moon  gave  humanity  the  week  or  whether  humanity 
gave  the  moon  the  week?  The  astronomer  laughs 
at  the  question,  but  the  psychological  student  of  the 
number-concept  hesitates.  Comte  pointed  out  that 
there  is,  so  to  speak,  a  week  in  the  very  structure  of 
the  mind.  Primitive  counting  can  grasp  two  triads 
and  a  rest,  or  three  couples  and  a  rest,  but  must  then 
begin  anew.  The  Eastern  nations  early  had  the 
universal  week,  which  is  quite  distinct  from  the 
lunar  week.  Greece  used  the  decade.  In  Rome 
the  week  conquered  the  decade,  and  is  now  firmly 
ingrained  in  human  thought.  When  these  psycho- 
logical facts  are  thoroughly  considered,  it  will  ap- 
pear that  the  astronomer  merely  astrologizes  when 
he  asserts  the  "derivation"  of  the  universal  week 
from  the  lunar.  The  moon  is  at  least  in  part  a 
construct  of  the  human  eye;  its  color  is  "in  the  eye," 


26  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

not  in  the  lunar  rock.  And  the  moon  does  not 
make  the  power  of  counting.  It  is  we  who  divide 
the  orb  into  quarters.  So,  as  to  the  exact  relation 
of  the  moon  to  the  week,  let  us  not  mythologize,  as 
our  present  anthropologists  are  inclined  to  do.  Let 
us  wait  till  we  know  whether  the  "idealist"  or  the 
"realist"  is  right  in  metaphysics,  and  until  psychol- 
ogy has  been  more  profoundly  related  to  the  norma- 
tive sciences.  We  will  even  ask  serious  "considera- 
tion" for  the  astronomer  Delambre's  acute  remark: 
"Those  who  reject  the  Mosaic  account  of  creation 
will  be  at  a  loss  to  assign  to  the  week  an  origin  hav- 
ing much  semblance  of  probability." 

Almost  every  primitive  religion  had  its  lunar  fes- 
tivals. The  day  of  the  new  moon,  as  well  as  the 
eighth,  fifteenth,  and  twenty-second,  was  likely  to  be 
in  some  sense  magical,  sacred,  blessed,  auspicious 
or  inauspicious.  Traces  of  such  feeling  are  found 
in  Egypt,  China,  India  and  Africa,  as  well  as  in 
Asia. 

Efforts  have  been  made  to  trace  the  Hebrew  Sab- 
bath to  the  Babylonian  lunar  seventh  day.  But 
recent  investigations  indicate  that  this  theory  is  quite 
indefensible.  The  word  Shahhatum  occurs  in  Baby- 
lonian, but  it  names  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month. 
Whereas   the   Hebrew   Shabath  means   'to   desist', 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      27 

Clay  says  of  Shabbattim,  "The  very  root  from  which 
the  word  is  derived,  if  in  use  in  the  Assyro-Baby- 
lonian  language,  is  almost  unknown,  and  can  not  be 
shown  with  our  present  knowledge  to  have  the  mean- 
ing 'to  rest,  cease,  or  desist.'  "  Nor  is  there  any 
indication  that  the  Shabbattim,  or  fifteenth  of  the 
month,  was  a  day  of  rest.  As  for  other  Babylonian 
days,  it  is  only  certain  that  (in  two  months  of  the 
year)  the  seventh,  fourteenth,  twenty-first,  twenty- 
eighth,  and  nineteenth  were  "evil  days",  on  which 
the  king  might  not  offer  a  sacrifice,  or  the  augur 
make  an  oracle,  or  a  physician  touch  the  sick.  Ap- 
parently on  these  days  the  surly  gods  would  not 
receive  sacrifice  or  answer  queries  or  assist  the 
physician.  A  curse  would  follow  if  these  officials 
ventured  to  perform  religious  duties  on  the  magic 
holiday  of  Marduk  and  Ishtar.  Come  not  unto 
us,  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy-laden,  for  we  will 
not  give  you  rest !  It  is  a  strange  contrast  to  a 
true  Sabbath. 

When  in  Egypt  and  Babylonia  astrology  had  pro- 
ceeded far  enough  to  discover  the  motions  of  the 
planets,  new  magic  arose.  Each  day  of  the  week 
became  sacred  to  some  one  of  the  seven  planets, 
counting  the  sun  and  moon.  And  now  the  day  of 
twenty-four  hours  is  measured,  and  each  hour  is  pre- 


28  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

sided  over  by  a  planet.  In  Egypt  the  hours  were 
assigned  in  turn  to  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  the  Sun, 
Venus,  Mercury,  the  Moon.  Each  day  of  the  year 
and  each  hour  of  the  day  had  its  astrological  mean- 
ing. All  times  were  magical.  There  was  a  ver- 
itable polytheism  of  time,  and  men's  activities  were 
weakened  by  fear. 

There  is  no  need  for  us  to  explain  the  pseudo- 
science  of  astrology  as  it  was  perfected  in  the 
middle  ages.  It  was  not  different,  psycholog- 
ically, from  that  of  early  Assyria  or  early 
Egypt.  In  the  middle  ages  the  astrologer  took 
precedence  of  the  physician  at  the  birth  of  a  prince, 
that  the  royal  horoscope  might  be  rightly  cast  and 
warnings  of  threatened  disasters  be  given.  This 
happened  in  Christian  lands,  and  clearly  shows  that 
paganism  had  never  been  quite  conquered.  The 
same  caricature  of  sacred  times  may  be  seen 
in  early  Assyria.  We  have  an  ancient  As- 
syrian calendar  on  which  every  day  of  the 
year  is  marked  as  either  lucky  or  unlucky. 
For  Egypt  we  have  even  fuller  records.  The 
priests  could  tell  you  of  what  divine  event  each  day 
of  the  year  was  symbolic.  A  defeat  of  a  sun-god 
on  a  given  date  would  give  to  that  day  an  eternal 
curse;  a  victory  would  give  it  the  charm  of  an 
amulet.     The  devout  Egyptian  must  know  the  magic 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  29 

calendar.  If  he  bathed  in  the  Nile  on  Paophi  22, 
he  would  certainly  be  devoured  by  a  crocodile,  for 
on  that  date  Sit  sent  a  crocodile  to  attack  Osiris. 
On  Paophi  12  every  action  was  dangerous.  On 
Thot  20  no  work  could  safely  be  done,  no  stranger 
safely  entertained.  On  Mechir  30  it  was  forbidden 
to  speak  aloud.  A  child  born  on  Tybi  4  will  live  to 
be  old.  The  sixth  of  Tybi  is  fortunate,  the  seventh 
inimical.  And  so  on  and  so  on — a  terrific  list  of 
restrictions  and  dangers,  alternating  with  the  rash- 
est  auguries  of  good.  The  god  Thot,  however, 
knows  the  secrets  of  each  day,  and  has  such  knowl- 
edge of  the  other  gods  that  he  can  compel  them. 
He  gives  his  magic  knowledge  to  his  priests,  and 
they  can  put  it  at  the  service  of  those  who  pay  for  It. 

In  such  ways  were  the  eternal  heavens  bent  to 
very  trivial  temporalities.  Numbers  themselves, 
those  children  of  time,  became  magical.  Three, 
six,  seven,  nine,  ten,  twelve,  thirteen — what  number 
has  not  promised  or  threatened  the  credulous  be- 
liever? Even  unity  has  been  considered  magical, 
and  worshiped  as  an  end  in  itself. 

But  we  have  seen  enough  to  assure  us  that  the 
sacredness  of  sacred  times  is  not  what  primitive 
men  thought  it  to  be.  The  terrible  fear  of  taboo, 
the  terrible  foreboding  of  disaster — these  were  the 
harsh    forms   by  which    astrology   groped   toward 


30  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

spiritually  sacred  time.  The  harshness  means  the 
importance  of  sacred  time.  But  it  must  sorely  have 
puzzled  some  ancient  Egyptian  to  find  that  noble 
joy  could  happen  to  him  on  an  "inauspicious"  day. 
And  on  the  sabbatum  some  gloomy  Babylonian  king, 
shut  up  in  his  palace,  may  have  said:  "Alas  that 
God  should  fail  me  in  my  utmost  need." 

§5.  The  contrast  in  religion. — To  perceive  in  the 
history  of  religion  two  opposite  tendencies  regarding 
time  and  eternity,  it  is  unnecessary  to  define  either 
term  with  strictness.  Whether  we  call  time  the 
measure  of  motion,  or  the  underlying  reality  of 
phenomena,  or  a  mere  illusion  of  the  senses,  or  a 
form  under  which  the  human  mind  constructs  ex- 
perience, or  the  form  of  the  human  will;  whether 
we  call  eternity  an  eternal  now,  or  an  endless  dura- 
tion, or  the  reality  behind  time,  or  an  unknown  some- 
thing quite  different  in  its  nature  from  time — the  fact 
remains  that  instinctively  some  religions  have  valued 
time  more  than  others  have  valued  it. 

The  ancient  Persians  placed  great  emphasis  upon 
time.  In  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  (Zarthusht) 
the  world  is  regarded  as  having  a  definite  beginning 
and  a  definite  end  in  time,  and  the  history  of  it  is 
brief.  The  entire  period  is  only  twelve  thousand 
years.  During  the  first  third  of  this  period  the 
will  of  God  (Ahura  Mazda)  is  supreme.      During 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  3  I 

the  second  third  there  is  a  tremendous  struggle  be- 
tween good  and  evil,  Ahura  and  Ahriman.  During 
the  last  third  the  evil  is  defeated.  The  first  half 
of  the  twelve  thousand  years  sees  the  calm  life  of 
the  waiting  spiritual  forces,  including  the  undisturbed 
existence  (for  the  second  three  thousand  years)  of 
one  gigantic  primeval  man,  the  righteous  Gayomart. 
Then  for  six  thousand  years  comes  the  life  of  ordi- 
nary men,  a  life  of  struggle  and  responsibility. 
The  final  destiny  of  every  man  is  decided  in  these 
six  thousand  years.  Zoroaster  is  sent  to  men  to 
enlighten  and  encourage  them  in  the  midst  of  the 
six  thousand  years.  "I  have  created  thee,"  says 
Ahura  to  Zoroaster,  "in  the  middle  time  .  .  .  for 
whatever  is  in  the  middle  is  more  precious,  as  the 
heart  is  in  the  midmost  of  the  body."  This  concep- 
tion of  the  world  made  each  moment  of  life  signifi- 
cant. Man  is  working  out  his  own  destiny  day  by 
day.  And  he  is  a  fellow-worker  with  God.  He 
is  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  against  evil.  The  issue 
between  good  and  evil,  which  seemed  doubtful  when 
Zoroaster  appeared,  is  indeed  not  doubtful;  the  good 
will  prevail;  but  unless  each  man  fights  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  cause  of  the  good,  he  will  be  con- 
demned at  the  judgment  to  the  fires  of  hell.  Life 
is  short  and  every  minute  counts.  History  is  ir- 
reversible.     When  once  the  end  of  the  world  has 


32  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

come,  it  will  be  a  full  end,  and  there  will  be  no  re- 
newing. There  will  be  no  purgatory,  no  future  pro- 
bation, no  reincarnation,  no  revolving  cycles  of  crea- 
tion and  destruction.      It  is  now  or  never. 

Contrast  with  this  temper  of  mind  that  of  ancient 
India.  The  creator  Brahman  lives  in  a  weary  suc- 
cession of  a  hundred  divine  days  and  nights,  each 
of  a  length  beyond  man's  appreciation.  At  the  end 
of  each  night  he  creates  the  world  anew.  After 
this  early  Brahmanism  we  have  Buddhism,  in  which 
the  alternate  periods  of  creation  and  destruction  op- 
press the  imagination  beyond  words.  A  great 
period,  or  Kalpa,  of  cosmical  evolution — the  period 
between  two  destructions  of  the  world — is  divided 
into  four  incalculable  periods;  that  of  destruction, 
that  of  duration  of  destruction,  that  of  renovation, 
that  of  duration  of  renovation.  It  is  impossible 
to  exhaust  one  of  these  periods  by  numbering  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years.  If  a  mountain  of  iron 
were  touched  once  in  a  hundred  years  by  a  piece  of 
soft  muslin,  the  mountain  would  be  worn  to  nothing 
before  one  incalculable  elapsed.  Such  was  the  teach- 
ing of  Buddha;  but  nevertheless  Buddhists  have 
tried  to  calculate  these  periods,  and  one  estimate 
of  an  incalculable  requires  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  septillions  of  kilometres  of  ciphers.  If  a  dis- 
ciple would  free  himself  from  evil  and  be  purged  to 

(3) 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  33 

perfection,  it  is  through  such  periods  as  these  that 
he  must  forever  die  and  be  born  again,  passing 
through  endless  reincarnations.  What  a  man  does 
in  this  life  is  important,  but  not  because  it  leads  to 
salvation  at  a  last  judgment.  It  is  impor- 
tant because  law.  Karma,  is  inexorable,  and  the 
consequences  of  each  act  last  through  inconceivable 
years.  A  blow  received  today  is  punishment  for  a 
blow  given  in  some  previous  incarnation,  perchance 
a  million  years  ago. 

Once  started  on  such  thoughts  as  these,  the  human 
mind  quickly  passes  beyond  vast  periods  and  spaces 
which  calm  the  soul,  and  comes  to  an  ever- 
receding  emptiness  which  terrifies.  It  evokes  aeons 
and  solitudes  which  make  the  thought  of  God  im- 
possible; which  freeze  the  blood;  which  force  the 
soul  to  groan  with  insupportable  tedium  or  sink  in 
vertigo.  Add  to  these  spectres  the  conviction  of 
Karma,  relentless  in  its  logic,  omniscient  in  the  de- 
tails of  its  cruelty,  and  it  is  the  wonder  of  psychol- 
ogy that  the  Hindu  mind  could  support  such  a  creed. 
The  patience  of  that  mind  is  abnormal.  If  these 
be  metaphysical  thoughts,  then  we  can  not  say  that 
metaphysics  is  without  practical  importance.  It 
can  drive  a  man  to  insanity.  It  can  ungear  the  soul 
from  practical  endeavor,  and  so  paralyze  it  by 
eternity  that  it  is  useless  in  time.  , 


34  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Of  course  the  Hindu  mind  has  been  obliged  to 
seek  relief  from  such  thoughts.  The  popular  forms 
of  Indian  religion  have  found  it  in  various  genial 
polytheisms.  The  higher  speculative  forms  have 
found  it  in  denying  reality  to  time.  In  the  system 
of  Shankara,  the  most  famous  commentator  on  the 
Vedas,  time  and  space  form  the  tissue  of  a  veil — 
maya,  illusion — which  separates  us  from  reality.  At 
bottom  things  are  eternal  in  the  sense  of  being  time- 
less, and  if  we  could  open  our  eyes  we  should  see 
nothing  but  eternal  good,  a  good  already  accom- 
plished. The  yogi,  the  man  of  spiritual  enlightenment, 
is  able  to  do  this  by  contemplation.  The  state  which 
he  attains  is  nirvana,  a  condition  of  passive  rest  and 
subtle  quiet  joy.  But  though  the  yogi  may  thus 
elude  the  terrors  of  infinite  duration,  he  theoretically 
takes  himself  out  of  all  actual  struggle  in  the  world 
of  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  have  been  yogis 
who  have  done  India  a  great  deal  of  practical  good, 
men  who  have  emerged  from  their  peaceful  dream, 
refreshed  for  genuine  service.  But  the  desire  to 
escape  all  the  responsibilities  of  time — this  always 
means  a  touch  of  spiritual  paralysis.  Even  in  our 
own  day,  when  a  new  spirit  of  action  is  awakening 
in  India,  It  Is  not  surprising  to  find  a  distinguished 
Hindu  leader  declaring  that  altruistic  action 
Is    useless.       The    late    SwamI    VIvekananda  said 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      35 

that  a  man's  trying  to  help  the  world  is  "like 
the  running  of  a  white  mouse  in  its  circular  cage." 
"We  can  not  add  happiness  to  the  world.  All  these 
talks  about  a  millennium  are  very  nice  as  school- 
boys' stories,  but  no  better  than  that." 

If  there  were  in  the  world  no  type  of  religion 
save  the  ancient  Persian  and  the  ancient  Hindu  types, 
the  modern  western  mind  would  unquestionably  pre- 
fer the  Persian.  It  strikes  a  certain  chord  of  re- 
sponse in  us.  To  feel  that  now  is  the  accepted  time, 
now  is  the  day  of  salvation — this  appeals  to  us,  no 
matter  how  recreant  we  may  have  been  in  seizing 
opportunity  divinely  offered.  It  is  in  line  with  the 
stern  doctrine.  Be  ye  doers  of  the  word  and  not 
hearers  only,  deceiving  your  own  souls.  It  is  in 
line  with  the  less  spiritual  principle  that  time  is 
money.  It  chimes  with  the  cry  for  progress.  It 
strengthens  our  feeling  that  we  too  are  making  his- 
tory. We  like  to  feel  that  "something  happens  in 
what  happens,"  and  that  our  efforts  to  make  things 
happen  do  really  count. 

And  yet  the  Persian  type  of  religion  had  its 
dangers.  We  know  so  little  of  spiritual  life  in  that 
far  place  and  day  that  we  can  not  clearly  record  those 
dangers.  Yet  the  Persians  probably  lacked  pa- 
tience; probably  built  with  too  little  regard  for  the 
terrestrial   future.      Haste   and  anxiety  may  have 


36  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

made  them  cruel.  In  spite  of  their  noble  prayers 
to  Ahura — prayers  in  which  the  note  of  aspiration, 
inquiry,  and  effort  is  still  to  be  detected — they  could 
not  know  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  under- 
standing. If  there  is  action  without  reflection,  or 
zeal  without  knowledge,  then  progress  becomes  a 
mere  beating  of  the  air.  Carlyle  complained  of  our 
boasted  modern  progress  that  much  of  it  is  "all 
action  and  no  go."  It  may  even  have  dawned  upon 
the  ancient  Persians  that  though  they  should  win 
their  salvation  and  escape  hell-fire,  they  would  pos- 
sibly be  restless  in  eternity  for  lack  of  occupation. 
Such  a  fear  may  be  guessed  at  from  the  rise  of 
a  Zoroastrian  heresy  called  the  Zervanite.  Zervan 
(Zrvan)  is  time,  and  this  heresy  not  only  makes 
time  infinite,  but  deifies  it.  Of  this  heresy  we  shall 
hear  again,  in  our  third  chapter. 

As  the  religious  imagination  tries  to  conceive  of 
God,  it  is  inclined  to  oscillate  between  the  concept 
of  time  and  that  of  eternity.  And,  rightly  or  wrong- 
ly, it  associates  with  this  antithesis  various  others 
— change  and  permanence,  appearance  and  reality, 
activity  and  rest.  Thus  arise  two  opposing  con- 
ceptions of  God,  or  of  God  and  the  world. 

In  one  picture,  the  world  is  real  and  time  and 
space  are  genuine  facts.  This  is  true  not  only  for 
us,  but  for  God.     To  him,  as  to  us,  the  past  is  past. 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      37 

the  future  is  to  come.  He  watches  the  course  of 
history  calmly,  and  guides  it  to  a  glorious  issue.  Or, 
he  watches  the  course  of  history  with  anxiety,  and 
struggles  to  make  the  good  prevail  in  time.  He 
acknowledges  in  men  a  genuine  power  of  freedom, 
and  expects  them  to  >vork  with  him,  producing  real 
results  in  history.  The  struggle  against  sin  is  a 
real  struggle.  Evil  is  a  reality,  which  men  must 
help  to  root  out  of  the  constitution  of  things.  God 
loves  men  truly,  and  arms  them  for  the  fight. 

In  the  other  picture,  time  and  space  are  appear- 
ance merely.  They  are  subjective  illusions — such 
as  we  suffer  when  we  seem  to  see  a  stick  bent  in 
the  pool,  or  when  we  imagine  a  sad  night  to  have 
been  longer  than  it  was;  or  they  are  forms  of  our 
finite  constitution,  necessary  modes  of  our  thinking, 
but  modes  which  God  does  not  share.  God  is  eter- 
nal in  the  sense  of  being  quite  out  of  relation  with 
time.  His  life  is  a  nunc  stans,  an  eternal  now — 
and  even  this  way  of  stating  it  is  false  to  the  fact, 
for  it  is  temporal  and  paradoxical.  To  such  a 
God  there  is  no  past  or  future — nay,  in  strict  logic, 
no  present  either.  There  is  no  change  in  him.  He 
does  not  strive.  To  him  the  darkness  and  the  light 
are  both  alike,  and  evil  is  mere  seeming,  and  men's 
efforts  are  but  appearance.  He  Is  pure  being,  the 
only  reality.      If  we  say  that  he  loves  us,  it  is  by 


38  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

a  figure  of  speech,  for  human  emotions  can  not  in 
strictness  be  attributed  to  him.  He  is  omniscient, 
omnipotent,  infinite,  timeless,  unchangeable,  abso- 
lute. But  since  these  attributes,  taken  abstractly, 
seem  to  nullify  each  other,  he  is  in  very  truth  inde- 
finable save  by  negatives,  and  in  strictness  we  have 
no  right  to  call  him  either  personal  or  impersonal. 
Silence  is  our  only  answer  to  questions  as  to  the  ab- 
solute. 

Such  are  the  two  extremes  to  which  the  religious 
imagination  is  carried  by  the  antithesis  of  which  we 
are  speaking,  and  those  which  are  instinctively  as- 
sociated with  it  as  corollaries.  But  the  soul  can 
not  rest  content  with  either  picture  alone,  with  either 
picture  conceived  intellectually.  The  religious  para- 
dox insists  that  God  is  at  once  timeless  and  in  time,  at 
once  inscrutable  and  known,  at  once  passionless  and 
loving,  at  once  and  in  some  sense  active  and  at  rest. 
Later  we  shall  see  in  what  way  the  Bible  offers  a 
spiritual  solution  of  the  problem. 

§6.  The  contrast  in  philosophy. — We  next  in- 
quire whether  philosophers  have  achieved  any  gen- 
eral agreement  among  themselves  as  to  the  defini- 
tion of  time  and  eternity. 

Every  philosophy  has  tried  to  reconcile  the 
temporal  with  the  eternal,  the  transitory  with 
the    permanent,    the    changing    with    the    immut- 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      39 

able,  the  contingent  with  the  necessary,  the 
dependent  with  the  independent,  the  many  with  the 
one,  the  particular  with  the  universal.  Thought 
can  not  proceed  at  all  without  the  help  of  such 
contrasts  as  these,  nor  can  it  rest  content  in  either 
group  of  abstractions.  There  is  one  group  of 
thinkers  who  stand  merely  for  the  temporal,  the 
transitory,  the  changing,  the  contingent,  the  depend- 
ent, the  many,  the  particular.  There  is  no  one 
group  who  stand  merely  for  the  eternal,  the  per- 
manent, the  immutable,  the  necessary,  the  independ- 
ent, the  one,  the  universal.  Doubtless,  however, 
there  are  temperamental  biases. 

Apparently  the  "temporal"  group  of  concepts  was 
especially  vivid  to  Thales,  Anaximander,  Anaxime- 
nes,  Heraclitus,  Democritus,  Hobbes,  Ampere, 
Weisse,  Kierkegaard,  Beneke,  Diihring.  Appar- 
ently it  is  now  especially  vivid  to  Messrs.  Ostwald, 
Haeckel,  Hoffding,  Bergson,  James,  Dewey,  B.  Rus- 
sell, Hodgson,  Schiller,  Sturt. 

Apparently  the  "eternal"  group  of  concepts  im- 
pressed with  peculiar  force  Parmenides,  Zeno  of 
Elea,  Melissus,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Shankara,  Ra- 
manuja,  Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus,  Eckhardt,  Boehme, 
Spinoza,  Kant,  Fichte,  Hegel.  Today  this  group 
of  concepts  attracts  such  men  as  Messrs.  Bradley, 


40  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Bosanquet,  McTaggart,  Eucken,  Miinsterberg, 
Royce,    Caird,   Watson,   Taylor,   Ormond. 

We  make  these  groupings  with  hesitation,  and 
in  the  notes  will  be  found  certain  qualifications  of 
them.  But  after  all  we  are  not  attempting  a  chapter 
in  the  biography  of  philosophers.  The  point  is 
merely  that  there  are  two  general  philosophical 
temperaments,  to  one  of  which  time  is  relatively  real 
and  stubborn,  while  to  the  other  it  is  relatively 
unreal  and  illusory.  But  we  must  hesitate  long 
in  the  case  of  certain  great  thinkers.  Such  names 
as  Augustine,  Newton,  Leibnitz,  Lotze,  give  us 
pause.  In  these  men  the  two  temperaments 
collide  so  sharply  that  no  radical  system  results. 
Indeed  some  judges  would  probably  declare  the  same 
of  Aristotle,  of  Kant,  of  Diihring,  or  of  Messrs. 
Eucken,  Miinsterberg,  Royce.  But  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  because  we  seem  to  find  deep  inner 
contradictions  in  a  thinker  like  Augustine  such 
men  have  failed  to  be  influential.  It  is  impossible 
to  name  more  influential  thinkers  than  Aristotle, 
Augustine,   Kant. 

From  the  development  of  such  temperamental  dif- 
ferences as  those  above  described  have  come  the 
various  philosophical  systems.  They  result  when 
different  men  persistently  ask  of  their  own  intellects 
the  exact  definition  of  the  great  concepts  by  which 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      4I 

the  race  has  thought  its  way  upward.  Systems  re- 
sult when  different  types  of  mind  inquire  of  them- 
selves what  spirit  really  is,  what  matter  really  is, 
what  space,  time,  motion,  force,  consciousness,  good- 
ness, God,  really  are.  The  mind  does  not  hesitate 
to  ask  of  itself  even  the  question  what  it  really  is 
to  be;  even  a  child,  reflecting  upon  the  word  is, 
may  wonder  what  "is"  is.  When  the  answer  eludes 
the  questioner,  the  question  takes  a  different  form, 
but  it  does  not  cease  to  recur  unless  the  thinker  sinks 
back  to  the  unquestioning  animal  level.  The  ques- 
tion, "What  is  God?"  may  change  to  "What  is  God 
to  me?" — In  which  form  It  seems  more  real,  though 
now  a  definition  of  "me"  is  also  required.  The 
question  as  to  what  time  really  is  may  become  the 
question  as  to  whether  time  Is  real  at  all.  By  such 
shifting  of  the  questioning  from  phase  to  phase  of 
experience  the  problems  of  philosophy  get 
reduced  to  a  small  number,  the  solution  of  any  one 
of  which  would  quickly  lead  to  the  solution  of  the 
others.  Hoffding  has  said  that  the  problems 
are  only  four — that  of  consciousness,  that  of  knowl- 
edge, that  of  being,  that  of  values.  He  also  thinks 
— but  perhaps  too  hopefully — that  all  these  may  be 
at  bottom  one,  the  problem  of  the  relation  between 
continuity  and  discontinuity. 

The  critical  analysis  of  the  time-concept  has  been 


42  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

comparatively  late;  and  a  great  deal  of  attention  is 
now  being  paid  to  it.  In  early  Greek  philosophy 
the  question  was  rather  as  to  the  relations  of  change 
and  permanence.  To  Heraclitus  change  is  the  great 
reality;  everything  changes,  flows.  Plato  met  the 
Heracliteans  by  pointing  out  that  ideas  are  less 
changing  than  matter.  A  mathematical  relation, 
for  example,  remains  true  and  real  though  the  ma- 
terials that  it  concerns  are  changing.  Geometrical 
roundness  and  squareness  are  changeless  and  time- 
less, however  perishable  round  things  and  square 
things  may  be.  Thus  Plato  set  an  impassible  gulf 
between  mental  forms  and  material  objects.  The 
former  have  their  perfect  and  eternal  existence  in 
God,  who  is  pure  mind.  The  latter,  including  the 
entire  visible  world,  are  perishable.  Time  is  not 
real,  but  is  a  moving  image  of  immovable  eternity; 
It  was  created,  and  it  will  cease  to  be.  Aristotle,  that 
greatest  of  ancient  students  of  physical  facts,  re- 
fused to  admit  the  Impassible  gulf.  He  gave  to 
every  object  Its  own  form,  and  made  the  world  and 
time  as  eternal  as  God  and  eternity.  Time  Is  the 
number  of  motion,  and  motion  proceeds  In  some  way 
from  an  unmovable  mover,  God. 

Discontented  with  the  static  look  of  Aristotle's 
realism,  the  Neoplatonlsts  tried  to  rehabilitate  Plato 
by  establishing  a  closer  connection  between  time  and 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  43 

spiritual  energy.  Plotinus  regards  time  as  generated 
by  the  activity  of  the  world-spirit,  which  longs  to  give 
to  formless  matter  the  form  of  perfection.  The  spirit 
of  man  shares  this  energy,  and  can  imitate  the  eternal 
perfection  "by  going",  by  striving.  The  present  thus 
acquires  a  new  dignity  and  becomes  the  very  life  of 
the  soul.  There  would  be  no  time  save  for  the 
restless  spiritual  energy  which  strives  to  transcend 
time.  It  is  a  noble  conception,  and  helps  to  account 
for  the  immense  influence  of  Neoplatonism,  which, 
like  certain  other  religions,  struggled  with  early 
Christianity  for  possession  of  the  Roman  world. 
But  with  its  doctrine  of  time  Neoplatonism  combined 
a  conviction  of  the  unreality  of  matter  and  of  evil, 
and  a  strong  tendency  to  dream.  It  therefore  failed 
to  master  the  intellect  of  the  hard-headed  Roman 
people.  Only  men  of  Augustine's  type  could  do 
that — men  to  whom  had  been  given  a  profound  sense 
of  the  reality  of  the  Christian  struggle  against  evil. 
Augustine  was  a  mystic  as  passionate  as  Plotinus, 
but  he  was  also  a  shrewd,  strong,  practical  organizer 
of  spiritual  forces.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising 
to  find  him  deeply  divided  in  mind  as  to  the  nature 
of  time.  "If  no  one  asks  me  what  time  is,  I  know; 
but  if  I  wish  to  explain  it  to  an  inquirer,  then  I  do 
not  know."  He  believes  with  Plato  that  it  was 
created  with  the  world.       But  when  he   abstracts 


44  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

from  his  experience  of  it,  he  finds  it  consisting  of 
three  unreal  parts — the  past  which  no  longer  is,  the 
present  which  is  a  mere  imaginary  point,  the  future 
which  is  not  yet — and  so  he  wonders  whether  it  is 
not  a  mere  subjective  illusion.  His  ardent  prayers 
for  enlightenment  do  not  solve  the  abstract  problem. 

During  the  middle  age  the  Platonic  and  Aristote- 
lian views  reappear  with  various  modifications.  The 
most  significant  of  these  is  the  schoolmen's  distinc- 
tion between  time  and  duration.  Time,  which  ap- 
plies to  man  only,  may  be  viewed  either  as  duration 
or  as  succession,  but  in  reality  includes  both.  Dura- 
tion is  applicable  to  God,  but  succession  is  not. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  modern  period,  Descartes 
makes  time  unreal,  but  space  real.  Spinoza  re- 
gards space  as  an  attribute  of  God,  but  denies  both 
duration  and  succession  to  the  divine  nature.  With 
Hobbes  the  modern  spirit  of  skepticism  concerning 
both  time  and  space  sets  in.  To  Hobbes  time  is  a 
certain  image  or  phantasm  left  upon  the  mind  by 
the  motion  of  a  moving  body.  To  Locke  time  is 
the  mere  succession  of  ideas,  and  reality  is  known  to 
us  only  through  sensation.  To  Hume  the  relation 
between  cause  and  effect  is  merely  customary,  not 
necessary,  and  since  cause  and  effect  are  a  temporal 
relation,  the  reahty  of  time  is  annihilated. 

Kant  meets  the  skepticism  of  Hume  with  the  se- 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  45 

verest  analysis  of  consciousness  that  has  ever  been 
made,  and  the  conclusion  that  time  and  space  are 
essential  ways  of  human  thinking,  though  they  have 
no  validity  for  that  unknown  reality  which  is  ul- 
timate. They  are  not  ultimate,  for  time  can  not 
be  conceived  either  as  beginning  or  as  not  beginning, 
and  space  can  not  be  conceived  either  as  ending  or  as 
not  ending.  Yet  they  have  this  much  permanence 
— that  they  are  of  the  very  structure  of  our  con- 
sciousness. Their  permanent  contradictoriness  is 
the  condition  of  all  human  thinking,  and  science 
ought  to  be  possible,  even  if  no  other  than  scientific 
knowledge  is  possible  to  man. 

Such  are  the  typical  conclusions — not  the  argu- 
ments— about  time,  from  Plato  to  Kant.  Kant 
makes  time  real  for  the  life  which  now  is,  and  in 
his  great  book  on  the  practical  reason  he  attempts 
to  build  a  practical  philosophy  as  strenuous  as  those 
which  his  criticism  had  destroyed.  But  the  chief 
result  of  his  life's  work  was  the  proposition  that  ul- 
timate reality  is  unknowable,  and  this  is  the  legacy 
he  leaves  to  his  philosophical  heirs.  Many  have 
accepted  it.  Hence  we  have  the  school  of  agnostics, 
a  school  which  includes  a  large  number  of  the  ablest 
scientists  of  the  time.  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  the 
philosophical  mathematician  of  the  English  Cam- 
bridge, remarks  that  "It  is  customary  with  philoso- 


46  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

phers  to  deny  the  reality  of  space  and  time",  but  he 
forgets  for  the  moment  that  Kant  killed  off  many 
philosophers  and  nipped  many  more  in  the  bud.  It 
is  precisely  because  time  and  space  are  hard  things 
to  handle  in  philosophy  that  so  many  men  have 
turned  their  backs  upon  metaphysics  in  disgust.  A 
Darwin  meddles  not  with  the  infinite,  but  devotes 
his  life  to  a  study  of  real  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  time.  The  same  feeling  that  leads  so  many 
Christians  to  ask,  "What  is  the  practical  use  of 
metaphysics,  anyway?"  leads  scientific  men  to  say, 
"What  is  the  practical  use  of  either  religion  or 
metaphysics?" 

But  agnosticism  is  not  the  only  type  of  thought 
since  Kant.  The  desire  for  some  positive  assur- 
ance as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  things  is  very  strong 
in  human  nature.  Men  like  Fichte  and  Hegel  built 
upon  this  fact.  They  felt  that  to  assert  positively 
the  impossibility  of  absolute  knowledge  was  itself 
an  absolute  statement,  and  they  assumed  the  exist- 
ence, in  the  human  soul,  of  some  standard  of  absolute 
knowledge.  Hence  in  Europe — as  formerly  in 
India — arose  the  so-called  systems  of  absolutism. 
The  whole  of  reality  is  called  the  Absolute.  Ab- 
solutism assumes  that  in  the  absolute  all  positive 
and  negative  characteristics  meet;  it  Is  the  ground 
In  which  all  opposites,  even  good  and  evil,  are  recon- 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      47 

ciled.  The  question  then  arises  as  to  whether  hu- 
man knowledge  Is  adequate  to  determine  the  ab- 
solute. The  Idea  of  God  Is  not  the  same  as  that 
of  the  absolute,  and  it  Is  precisely  one  of  the  ques- 
tions of  metaphysics  whether  the  absolute  is  In  any 
sense  personal.  Fichte  and  Hegel  preferred  to 
identify  God  and  the  absolute,  but  whether  either 
was  warranted  by  his  method  In  doing  so  is  still 
a  subject  of  warm  debate,  Fichte  conceived  the 
absolute  as  the  Divine  Will,  in  which  man  shares 
by  virtue  of  his  spiritual  nature.  Hegel  conceived 
it  as  the  Divine  Idea,  which  is  ever  coming  more 
and  more  into  consciousness  in  the  process  of  his- 
tory. By  means  of  these  concepts  these  thinkers 
sought  to  show  how  what  Is  absolute  comes  to  ex- 
press itself  in  temporal  experience.  To  Fichte,  the 
temporal  and  spatial  world  Is  involuntarily  con- 
structed by  each  mind  In  its  spiritual  activity,  and 
since  there  are  absolute  laws  at  work,  the  result 
is  essentially  the  same  for  all  minds.  To  Hegel 
"everything  Is  spirit,  and  spirit  is  everything";  but 
just  what  spirit  Is — whether  It  Is  the  process  of 
thought  or  whether  it  includes  the  independent  striv- 
ing of  free  spirits — about  this  the  critics  of  Hegel 
do  not  agree.  Whatever  it  Is,  it  is  something  to 
which  time  is  unreal. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  discuss  the  close  reason- 


48  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

ing  by  which  Fichte,  In  his  system  of  "antitheses," 
and  Hegel,  in  his  system  of  "thesis,  antithesis,  and 
synthesis,"  defended  their  conclusions.  Still  less  is 
it  possible  to  follow  the  attempts,  sometimes  bril- 
liantly illuminating  and  sometimes  ludicrously  ab- 
surd, which  Hegel  made  to  apply  his  dialectic  to 
nature  and  to  human  history.  We  are  attempting 
here  to  summarize  conclusions  only,  and  learn  if 
there  is  any  general  philosophical  consensus  as  to 
the  nature  of  time  and  eternity.  When  we  add  that 
both  these  absolutisms,  professedly  theistic,  have 
led  to  absolutisms  theistic  and  absolutisms  atheistic, 
it  becomes  clear  that  neither  Fichte  nor  Hegel  has 
won  the  philosophical  world.  Yet  each  was  a 
thinker  of  the  first  rank. 

Of  the  systems  deriving  from  Hegel,  that  which 
is  just  now  most  discussed  is  Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley's. 
Mr.  Bradley's  absolutism  concludes  that  knowledge 
is  unequal  to  the  real  because  knowledge  is 
relational  to  the  core,  and  the  absolute  is  not  rela- 
tional. But  just  as  In  the  animal  there  is  feeling 
which  is  lower  than  reason,  so  in  man  there  is 
feeling  which  is  higher  than  reason.  Like  any 
mystic,  Mr.  Bradley  the  skeptic  here  appeals  to  the 
private  consciousness.  To  this  mystical  higher 
plane  of  feeling  the  absolute  is  present.  Yet  even 
here  it  is  not  present  as  absolute  merely;  it  is  pres- 

(4) 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  49 

ent  together  with  appearance;  at  the  highest  level 
we  can  not  wholly  escape  the  relational.  Mr.  Brad- 
ley has  worked  out  this  position  with  great  brilliance 
and  acuteness,  but  it  can  not  be  said  to  have  met 
with  any  general  acceptance  among  thinkers.  It 
does  not  reconcile  good  and  evil  in  any  way  that 
appeals  to  our  spiritual  activity,  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  one  graceless  critic  has  called  it  "the 
higher  synthesis  of  God  and  the  devil."  Such  flings 
do  not  disturb  Mr.  Bradley,  who,  when  he  desires, 
is  a  master  of  irony,  but  who  is  at  heart  a  thinker 
of  the  greatest  seriousness  and  sincerity.  It  is  ob- 
vious that  in  this  absolutism  time  figures  as  mere 
appearance.  "If  time  is  not  unreal,"  says  Bradley, 
"I  admit  that  our  absolute  is  a  delusion." 

The  noble  absolutism  of  Professor  Royce,  though 
deeply  indebted  both  to  Hegel  and  to  Bradley,  re- 
fuses to  admit  the  unreality  of  time.  Royce  makes 
much  of  the  fact  that  our  present  consciousness  of 
time  has  always  some  duration;  there  is  a  time-span, 
a  more  than  specious  present;  we  are  never  aware 
of  the  present  as  a  mere  moment,  and  must  assume 
that  it  is  a  false  abstraction  to  divide  time  into  a 
non-existent  past,  an  imaginary  present  point,  and  a 
non-existent  future.  Rather  our  present  is,  as  certain 
older  thinkers  said,  like  our  grasp  of  a  bit  of  mel- 
ody; we  are  conscious  of  the  musical  phrase  as  pass- 


50  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

ing  note  by  note,  yet  at  the  same  time  we  grasp  the 
phrase  as  a  whole.  Our  actual  present  then  in- 
cludes something  of  the  past  and  of  the  future.  If 
this  be  true  of  our  present,  much  truer  is  it  of  God's. 
God  is  eternal,  yet  his  consciousness  includes  both 
past  and  future.  If  it  be  answered  that  this  makes 
God  static,  the  critic  is  asked  to  conceive  once  more 
the  phrase  of  music,  or  any  human  act.  It  is  then 
seen  that  our  present  owes  its  duration  to  our  active 
will;  for  it  is  the  meaning  of  the  music  that  we  are 
trying  to  grasp,  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  act  that  gives 
It  reality.  Time  then  is  the  form  of  the  will,  and  is 
included  within  the  eternal  by  the  fact  of  purpose. 
God  is  eternal,  because  he  is  working  out  an  eternal 
purpose.  Furthermore,  as  our  own  true  meaning 
and  purpose,  could  we  but  realize  it,  is  one  with 
God's,  so  our  true  higher  selves,  toward  which  we 
strive,  are  included  in  God. 

The  absolutism  of  Fichte  finds  its  most  noticeable 
recent  representative,  or  heir,  in  that  of  Profes- 
sor Miinsterberg.  Once  more  we  see  the  essence 
of  reality  regarded  as  will,  or  rather  as  deed,  act. 
But  since  Fichte's  day  scientific  knowledge  has 
greatly  advanced;  Miinsterberg  himself  is  a  dis- 
tinguished experimental  psychologist.  Neverthe- 
less, instead  of  being  drawn  into  "psychologism" 
— the   habit   of   regarding  ultimate   reality  as  the 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      5  I 

psychologist  regards  the  human  mind — this  modern 
idealist  draws  a  sharp  line  between  absolute  and 
scientific  knowledge.  The  great  World-deed,  in 
which  we  as  free  agents  share,  and  which  we  un- 
wittingly affirm  every  time  we  will  to  deny  it,  is 
timeless,  but  it  creates  time.  Precisely  as  a  man 
freely  wills  to  take  his  mind  into  the  psychologist's 
laboratory  and  try  to  measure  it,  so  the  Ultimate 
Will  freely  produces  time  itself.  It  is  a  free  crea- 
tion, and  man  is  not  its  slave.  Space,  time,  and 
quantity  are  not  perceptions,  but  acts  which  we 
execute  in  order  to  make  the  free  valuation  of  ex- 
istence possible.  The  striving  of  the  will  becomes 
the  starting-point  for  two  opposite  directions.  We 
call  the  starting-point  "now",  and  we  create  the  "no- 
more"  and  the  "not-yet."  The  absolute  striving 
toward  an  aim  shifts  the  "now"  continually  into  the 
"no-more,"  thus  separating  itself  into  an  endless  se- 
ries of  units  of  effort.  In  every  act,  the  aim  and 
the  attainment  coalesce.  In  the  act  both  past  and 
future  are  made  one,  and  that  is  the  meaning  of 
eternity.  The  World-act  (Welt-tat)  is  eternal  in 
time,  as  the  circle  is  endless  in  space.  The  spiritual 
world  is  eternal,  for  it  is  act  in  every  fiber;  and  in 
the  act  future  and  past  become  a  unit. 

The  argument  is  sufficiently  subtle,   and  any  at- 
tempt to  summarize  it  mutilates  it.      But  when,  in 


52  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

spite  of  the  sense  of  freedom  which  is  aroused  by 
reading  the  system,  we  learn  that  "strictly  speak- 
ing, nothing  in  the  world  of  causes  really  evolves", 
we  are  left  wondering  why,  after  all,  the  Timeless 
Deed  should  express  itself  in  time.  The  assurance 
that  "striving  is  alone  valuable"  hardly  relieves  our 
perplexity.  The  abstract  eternal  striving  of  a  time- 
less will  is  hardly  more  attractive  to  the  natural 
man  than  the  concrete  mortal  striving  of  the  psycho- 
logical will.  The  system  requires  us  to  think  of 
ourselves  as  each  divided  horizontally,  so  to  speak, 
into  a  timeless  ego  and  a  psychological  ego.  Doubt- 
less, however,  an  experimental  psychologist,  wearied 
of  studying  nervous  reactions  and  observing  mortal 
time-measurements,  may  enjoy  retreating  into  an  ut- 
terly timeless  self. 

We  have  now  sketched  three  or  four  types  of 
absolutism  without  finding  any  substantial  agreement 
as  to  time.  To  Fichte  and  Munsterberg  it  is  a 
creation  of  the  timeless  will;  to  Royce  it  is  included 
within  an  eternal  purpose  which  is  not — in  the 
Fichtean  sense — timeless.  To  Bradley  it  is  mere 
appearance,  hopelessly  relational.  Such  are  the  re- 
sults of  one  constructive  school  of  philosophy  since 
Kant.  But  there  are  other  post-Kantian  schools 
besides  agnosticism  and  absolutism.  There  is,  for 
instance,  naturalism. 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  53 

The  mood  of  naturalism  Is  known  to  us  all  in 
some  elementary  form.  As  children  we  have  all 
wondered,  with  Mark  Twain's  boy,  whether  the 
stars  were  supernaturally  created,  or  whether  "they 
just  naturally  happened."  The  enormous  advances 
of  physical  science  have  cast  suspicion  upon  the 
word  "supernatural,"  just  as  they  have  cast  sus- 
picion upon  the  word  "sacred."  The  scientist  re- 
peats the  remark  of  Laplace,  that  in  the  construc- 
tion of  a  mechanism  of  the  heavens,  the  hypothesis 
of  God  is  not  needed.  When,  therefore,  the  sci- 
entific mind  is  confronted  with  abstract  systems  like 
Hegel's  or  Bradley's,  it  is  tempted  to  swing  to  the 
opposite  extreme  and  declare  that  time  and  matter 
and  energy  are  real,  and  that  nothing  else  is.  There 
is  energy  and  there  are  the  real  forms  in  which  it 
is  expressed — matter,  motion,  change,  time — and 
there  is  nothing  else.  God  is  an  imaginary  being, 
"a  gaseous  vertebrate."  Consciousness  is  some- 
thing given  off  by  energy,  or  it  is  potential  energy, 
or  it  is  a  product  of  the  imagination  (whatever  that 
is)  ;  it  is  like  the  fly  on  the  balance  wheel,  imagining 
that  it  makes  the  wheel  revolve;  it  is  the  noise  of 
the  whistle,  not  the  force  in  the  whistle;  It  Is  the 
delusion  of  a  stone  which,  being  thrown  from  an 
unknown  hand,  awakes  in  flight  and  imagines  itself 
a  bird;  it  is  not  a  reality  but  an  epiphenomenon. 


54  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  eternal,  but  its  true 
name  is  time.  There  is  one  permanent  thing;  its 
name  is  energy.  At  all  events  Ostwald  says,  "from 
what  I  know  of  science  I  have  the  impression  that 
energy  will  outlive  everything  else  in  the  universe." 
Ostwald,  being  more  cautious  than  some  naturalists, 
declares  that  he  does  not  feel  justified  in  saying 
more  than  this.  But  his  caution  is  pathetic.  If 
energy  should  outlast  everything  else  but  then  cease 
to  last,  what  would  be  left?  Apparently  nothing, 
and  we  shall  not  be  accused  of  introducing  poetry 
into  philosophy  if  we  say  that  nothing  is  another 
name  for  death.  It  is  then  a  choice  between  ever- 
lasting energy  and  everlasting  death.  Or,  since 
Ostwald  elsewhere  agrees  to  call  energy  "work," 
it  is  a  choice  between  eternal  cosmic  work  and 
eternal  cosmic  death.  A  Godless  universe,  ending 
in  eternal  work  or  eternal  death.  And  this  is  a 
popular  philosophy!  No  wonder  that  the  people 
need  out-door  recreation  on  Sunday! 

Of  course  some  philosophers  who  look  on  this 
picture  and  on  that — absolutism  and  naturalism — 
feel  the  need  of  something  different  from  either. 
Rather  than  lose  God  out  of  the  universe  entirely. 
Mill  preferred  a  finite  God  limited  by  time.  So 
does  William  James.  So  do  Schiller  and  Rashdall 
of  Oxford.      We  have  Hoffding  saying  that  "If 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      55 

time  is  an  illusion,  it  is  also  an  illusion  of  the  second 
potency  if  we  imagine  that  we  can  lightly  rid  our- 
selves of  it,"  and  yet  Hoffding  is  a  most  sympathetic 
student  of  religion.  We  have,  finally,  Bergson  bas- 
ing his  whole  philosophy  upon  the  reality  of  time. 

Bergson's  system  is  having  a  great  vogue  in 
France,  and  it  is  surprising  that  he  has  not  yet  been 
translated.  He  distinguishes  between  pure  duration 
and  spatialized  duration.  Pure  duration  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  life.  The  vital  im- 
pulse, elan  vital,  is  pure  duration,  and  is  the 
creative  inner  force  from  the  lowest  organisms 
to  the  highest  man.  At  every  instant  it  produces 
something  new;  its  method  is  creative  evolution, 
revolution  creatrice.  Evolution  is  not  mere  vague 
"development";  it  is  an  irreversible  process,  filled 
with  new  meaning  at  every  step.  This  pure  dura- 
tion, however,  is  essentially  hid  from  the  intellect, 
because  the  process  of  conceptual  reasoning  is  spa- 
tial. Space  is  a  "later"  thing  than  time,  and  wholly 
subordinate.  Reason  is  a  late  product  of  life,  and, 
so  to  say,  is  only  a  by-product  at  that.  When 
thought  attempts  to  perceive  time  it  spatializes  it, 
treats  it  as  if  it  were  a  clock-face.  All  abstract 
thinking  is  static  and  geometric.  It  arrests  life,  and 
in  trying  to  give  form  to  It  merely  succeeds  in  de- 
forming it.      Thought  is  utterly  inadequate  to  rep- 


56  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

resent  life  or  instinct  or  duration.  "Intelligence 
is  the  art  of  making  artificial  objects" — not  of  rep- 
resenting life  as  it  is  in  nature. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Bergson's  onslaught 
upon  human  intelligence,  it  is  a  legitimate  reaction 
from  the  extreme  artificiality  of  the  Hegels  and 
Bradleys.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  attempts  have 
already  been  made  to  give  this  biological  theory 
religious  significance.  In  the  recent  articles  of 
M.  Le  Roy  duration  is  assigned  to  the  very  essence 
of  the  divine  nature.  God  is  like  duration,  for  at 
every  point  he  creates  the  new.  He  is  in  the  very 
movement  that  we  call  evolution.  Each  hour 
brings  genuine  novelties  into  existence,  genuine 
achievement,  new  forms  of  life,  new  thrills  of 
hope.  M.  Le  Roy's  theology  is  doubtless  re- 
garded as  heretical,  but  long  ago  men  perceived  that 
God  is  not  in  every  sense  immutable.  If  he  were 
in  every  sense  changeless,  he  could  not  answer 
prayer.  In  some  sense  he  is  indeed  "the  most 
changeable  of  beings." 

§7.  The  intellectual  dilemma. — Bergson  brings  us 
to  a  new  sense  of  the  limitations  of  thought. 
Thought  never  quite  overtakes  life.  We  perhaps 
"think  the  day  over"  when  it  is  done,  but  first  we 
have  to  get  through  the  day;  we  have  to  do  things 
and  decide  things,  even  though  we  act  without  much 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL  57 

reflection.  If  this  is  true  of  common  life,  how 
much  truer  it  is  of  speculation.  If  the  need  for 
rest  does  not  cut  short  our  philosophizing,  some 
inscrutable  paradox  finally  does.  Jehovah  shuts 
the  way  with  a  dilemma,  saying,  "Your  thoughts 
are  not  my  thoughts,"  and  sends  us  back  to  ex- 
perience for  a  wider  range  of  materials.  In  all 
the  centuries  Christians  have  known  that  certain 
things  have  been  concealed  from  the  wise  and 
prudent.  They  have  been  obliged  to  act,  and 
action  requires  faith. 

Surely  In  the  main  this  must  be  our  attitude  on 
perceiving  that  as  to  "time"  the  masters  disagree  and 
leave  us  darkling.  They  plunge  us  Into  a  dilemma. 
They  lead  us  to  an  intellectual  impasse,  a  blank  stone 
wall.  To  be  sure,  our  very  method  has  precipitated 
the  result,  for  we  have  abstracted  merely  the  con- 
clusions from  systems  already  abstract  enough. 
Yet  if  the  great  critical  thinkers  had  achieved 
any  real  definition  of  either  time  or  eternity,  even 
the  bare  conclusions  should  have  agreed.  Our 
degree  of  success  in  explaining  the  antinomy  by  phil- 
osophical aid  has  not  been  such  as  to  warrant  our 
continuing  the  speculation.  We  have  failed.  What 
then?  Shall  we  turn  from  metaphysics  in  despair 
as  well  as  In  defeat? 

Christians  have  often  done  so.      The  theologian 


58  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Mansel,  in  his  famous  lectures  on  the  hmits  of  re- 
ligious thought,  ended  in  blank  agnosticism.  God 
is  wholly  unknowable.  But  if  unknowable,  why 
God?  Why  not,  with  Spencer,  merely  the  Un- 
knowable? Mr.  Benn,  the  materialist,  gloats  over 
Mansel's  conclusion. 

It  Is  not  for  us  to  call  God  unknowable.  That 
is  much  too  "practical"  a  conclusion.  It  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  excessive  practicality  of  those  good 
people  who  have  refused  to  support  colleges  and 
laboratories,  and  have  seen  no  use  for  higher  mathe- 
matics. God  sends  severe  or  gentle  retribution  to 
such  men.  Too  often  he  is  obliged  to  throw  im- 
portant discoveries  into  the  hands  of  men  who  are 
not  ordinarily  called  religious.  His  gentle  retribu- 
tions come  in  the  way  of  wireless  telegraphy,  or  re- 
deemed farms,  or  antitoxin.  The  last  named  bless- 
ing we  owe  to  two  men — one  a  German  and  one  a 
Japanese — neither  of  whom  would  pass  muster  as 
a  "practical"  man  or  as  an  orthodox  Christian. 
But  Behring  and  Kitasuto  loved  their  laboratory  and 
they  loved  mankind,  and  they  have  their  reward. 

We  need  then  to  look  deep  enough  to  see  that  In 
all  abstract  and  abstruse  thinking  there  is  an  element 
of  the  eternal,  an  element  which  may  serve  spiritual 
ends.  The  mathematics  which  gave  us  wireless 
telegraphy  are  timeless,  and  enable  us  to  conquer 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  THE  ETERNAL      59 

time.  They  may  indeed  be  used  to  an  evil  end,  but 
it  is  only  a  few  months  since  they  enabled  God's 
servant,  the  lightning,  to  save  from  one  ship  more 
lives  than  thunderbolts  destroy  in  years.  The  im- 
personal biological  laws  revered  by  Behring  and 
Kitasuto  have  saved  the  lives  of  thousands  of  chil- 
dren, and  vastly  increased  the  amount  of  spiritual 
energy  available  on  earth  in  the  struggle  against 
sense  and  sin. 

What  is  true  of  science  is  true  of  philosophy. 
The  great  thinkers  have  been  vastly  influential  in 
establishing  a  conviction  of  the  eternal  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  The  men  whom  we  have  quoted  and  found 
wanting  are  men  whose  systems  sprang  out  of  de- 
votion to  goodness.  Plato's  beatific  vision  of  God's 
thought  cheered  the  hearts  of  Augustine  and  Athana- 
sius.  Aristotle  guided  the  thinking  of  the  church 
for  a  thousand  years.  Spinoza  has  been  called  the 
God-Intoxicated  thinker,  and  his  system  glows  with 
a  pure  white  light  of  religious  fervor.  Kant  de- 
stroyed systems  for  the  sole  purpose  of  establish- 
ing the  moral  law.  Hegel  was  no  dreamer,  but  an 
observant  interpreter  of  history.  FIchte  was  a  sol- 
dier of  German  liberty.  Huxley  was  the  very  soul 
of  honesty,  and  maintained  that  It  is  man's  duty  to 
fight  again  the  cruel  method  of  nature.  There  Is 
not,   among  the   fifty-four  philosophers  whom  we 


6o  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

have  named,  a  single  man  to  whose  system  all  ele- 
ments of  spiritual  vitality  are  denied.  This  fact 
we  must  gratefully  recognize  and  to  it  we  must 
later  return.  Whatever  noble  ideal  has  been  re- 
vealed to  philosophy  we  may  seek  out,  honor  and 
learn  from.  The  vision — not  the  proof — is  for 
us  the  important  thing. 

We  are  all  metaphysicans,  however  crude.  Some 
ideal  of  time  and  eternity  we  must  entertain.  We 
can  not  leave  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  to  be 
mingled  in  our  lives  haphazard.  Shall  we  aim  so 
to  divide  our  days  that  half  shall  be  secular  and 
half  sacred?  Is  that  the  crude  outcome  of  our 
speculations?  I  think  not;  but  even  that  would  be 
a  philosophy  of  life,  a  spiritual  attitude,  and  it 
would  be  better  than  drifting.  Without  some  such 
philosophy  we  shall  suffer  acute  or  gradual  secular- 
ization. 

Intellectually  defeated,  we  are  not  to  despair. 
We  are  to  return  to  experience  for  a  broader  and 
richer  view,  we  are  to  make  a  new  spiritual  estimate. 
We  are  to  gain  from  spiritual  activity  new  materials 
toward  self-definition  and  self-realization.  In  this 
mood,  then,  we  turn  from  the  philosophers  to  the 
prophets.  We  turn  from  systems  of  life  to  him 
who  said,  with  unparalleled  audacity  and  with  un- 
paralleled humility,  "I  am  the  hfe." 


Chapter  II. 

BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM. 

§8.  The  spiritual  power  of  Hebraism. — There  is 
a  tendency,  even  among  biblical  scholars,  to  over- 
look the  profound  spiritual  element  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. With  reverent  historical  criticism  we  have 
no  quarrel;  nor  have  we  any  with  reverent  spiritual 
criticism,  so  far  as  it  follows  Christ,  the  supreme 
spiritual  critic.  But  for  a  certain  type  of  scholar- 
ship, that  which  can  find  only  the  primitive  in  the 
Old  Testament,  we  have  only  indignation.  The 
Old  Testament  rises  above  every  other  ancient  book, 
not  excepting  the  Avesta  and  the  Vedas,  as  the 
Alps  rise  above  the  pyramids.  We  have  quoted  the 
biologist  Huxley  several  times,  because  he  was  a 
fair-minded  modern  thinker,  however  agnostic  in  his 
conclusions.  "All  that  is  best,"  says  Huxley,  "in 
the  ethics  of  the  modern  world,  in  so  far  as  it  has 
not  grown  out  of  Greek  thought  or  barbarian  man- 
hood, is  the  direct  development  of  the  ethics  of  old 
Israel.     There  is  no  code  of  legislation,  ancient  or 

61 


62  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

modern,  at  once  so  just  and  so  merciful,  so  tender 
to  the  weak  and  poor,  as  the  Jewish  law;  and,  if 
the  gospels  are  to  be  trusted,  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
himself  declared  that  he  taught  nothing  but  that 
which  lay,  implicitly  or  explicitly,  in  the  religious  and 
ethical  system  of  his  people."  Such  is  the  testimony 
of  one  who  can  not  be  called  a  partisan  of  any 
Judaistic  creed.  The  simple  truth  Is  that  the  work 
and  person  of  our  Lord  can  not  be  understood  at 
all  except  as  Christianity  is  regarded  as  the  child 
of  Judaism.  The  Old  Testament  was  Christ's 
Bible. 

He  gravely  declared  that  certain  things  per- 
mitted to  an  earlier  and  obstinate  people  could 
not  be  permitted  to  men  who  came  into  the 
world  later  In  time.  But  the  Christ  never  failed 
to  see  the  permanent  spiritual  element  in  those 
earlier  scriptures.  He  saw  light  in  them;  he  brought 
light  out  of  them;  but  he  never  made  light  of  them. 
It  Is  a  significant  fact.  To  ridicule  the  creation 
story,  to  make  light  of  the  story  of  the  fall,  to  re- 
gard Moses  as  barbaric  or  mythical,  to  rest  satis- 
fied in  the  idea  that  Abraham  was  a  mere  eponym — 
these  are  signs  of  Intellectual  superficiality  and  spir- 
itual blindness.  Of  the  creation  story  we  shall 
speak  presently.  As  to  the  fall,  there  Is  no  nar- 
rative  In  sacred  literature   which   has  profounder 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  63 

spiritual  meaning,  for  it  voices  the  whole  Hebraic 
conviction  of  man's  personal  responsibility  to  God, 
as  over  against  all  philosophies  which  confuse  God 
and  man  with  nature.  As  to  Moses — Huxley's  testi- 
mony just  quoted  is  perhaps  enough;  but  his  life  is 
profoundly  significant  at  every  step.  How  God 
guides  men,  redeems  them  from  violence,  makes 
their  strength  spiritually  effective  instead  of  de- 
structive, consecrates  their  intellects  till  divine  law 
becomes  human  law, — these  things  are  shown  in 
Moses;  take  him  out  of  the  world's  spiritual  history, 
and  spiritual  language  would  be  sadly  mutilated. 
As  for  Abraham,  type  of  renunciation,  faith, 
purpose,  progress,  loyalty — it  may  be  said  of 
him  that  Jehovah's  will  was  his  peace.  His 
spiritual  superiority  makes  him  the  forerunner  of 
him  who  said,  "Not  my  will,  but  thine,  be  done." 
And  as  Hoffding  remarks,  these  are  the  profoundest 
words  ever  uttered  on  this  planet.  The  reality  of 
our  spiritual  relations  with  God  is  as  truly  the 
pole-star  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  as  of 
the  New.  This  fact  is  to  be  deeply  meditated  be- 
fore we  relapse  into  the  superficial  criticism  of  things 
Jewish.  It  may  be  that  such  statements  have  pre- 
viously been  reiterated  at  tedious  length,  but  every- 
thing depends  on  our  approaching  the  creation 
story  in  a  fair-minded  way.     To  be  fair-minded  to- 


64  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

ward  the  stories  of  Genesis,  one  must  have  sought 
to  read  them  with  spiritual  appreciation. 

§9.  The  fourth  commandment. — This  is  equally 
true  of  those  early  theocratic  codes  which  we  find 
in  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Deuteronomy, 
and  especially  of  the  ten  commandments.  If  we 
are  to  read  the  ten  commandments  aright,  we  must 
do  so  in  the  spirit  of  our  Lord.  It  is  a  high  cri- 
terion, but  we  must  be  content  with  nothing  lower. 
We  shall  fail  to  see  these  ancient  laws  just  as  he 
saw  them;  his  view  is  lofty,  we  can  not  attain  unto 
it.  But  we  can  struggle  toward  it.  If  there  is  a 
temporal  element  in  these  commands,  we  can  not 
venture  to  define  it  in  other  terms  than  his.  And 
if  we  fail  to  see  the  spiritual  element  which  remains 
valid  for  the  religious  consciousness,  it  is  for  lack 
of  listening  to  the  Spirit. 

First  it  should  be  noted  that  the  ten  command- 
ments were  known  to  Israel  as  "the  ten  words." 
This  means,  ten  brief  words  from  Jehovah,  not  ten 
interminable  myths  about  him.  It  means  ten  brief 
and  solemn  suggestions,  not  ten  interminable 
lists  of  prescriptions  or  proscriptions.  It  means 
ten  words  of  equal  and  supreme  importance, 
to  be  kept  in  love  as  a  means  of  salvation 
from  sin;  they  are  not  an  end  but  a  means; 
they    are    not    grace    but    the    means    of    grace. 

(5) 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  65 

We  are  not  unaware  of  the  difficulties  which  later 
theology  found  in  grasping  the  meaning  of  such 
terms  as  law  and  grace.  But  the  difficulties  should 
fade  before  the  significance  of  the  phrase,  "the  ten 
words."  Each  was  meant  as  a  word  to  the  wise, 
for  a  word  to  the  wise  is  sufficient. 

The  fourth  word  appears  in  three  different 
phases  in  Ex.  xxiii,  12;  Deut.  v,  15;  and  (by  impli- 
cation) in  Gen.  ii,  3.  Three  motives  are  given,  which 
we  may  call  the  philanthropic  motive,  the  national 
motive,  and  the  eternal  motive.  The  first  two 
motives  pave  the  way  to  the  third,  and — as  we  shall 
see — are  taken  up  into  the  deep  spiritual  meaning 
of  the  third. 

In  Ex.  xxiii,  12,  the  word  reads:  "Six  days  thou 
shalt  do  thy  work,  and  on  the  seventh  day  thou 
shalt  rest;  \^marg.  keep  Sabbath]  that  thine  ox  and 
thine  ass  may  have  rest,  and  the  son  of  thine 
handmaid,  and  the  sojourner,  may  be  refreshed." 
The  philanthropic  motive — and  even  the  motive  of 
mercy  for  the  beasts — is  here  uppermost.  The  em- 
ployer! what  is  his  duty  toward  the  employed?  It 
is  one  half  of  the  greatest  question  of  economics. 
The  word  is  brief — it  is  a  word  to  the  wise — but  had 
it  been  received  it  would  have  solved  in  advance 
the  problem  of  labor  and  capital.  What!  would 
a  rest  of  one  day  in  seven  solve  that  mighty  prob- 


66  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

lem?  Has  not  the  worker  even  now  his  Sunday, 
his  day  for  worship  or  recreation?  Has  not  the  hint 
been  observed?  And  has  it  so  much  as  touched 
the  surface  of  the  monstrous  puzzle  of  modern 
industry  ? 

The  hint  has  not  been  observed,  for  the  motive 
was  an  essential  part  of  it.  The  word  called  for 
charity.  It  called  for  love.  Like  that  word  which 
so  troubled  Paul — the  tenth  word,  concerning  covet- 
ousness — it  asks  for  a  state  of  heart.  Had  it  been 
loyally  observed,  it  would  not  now  be  necessary 
in  a  republic  to  protect  the  rights  of  laborers  by  civil 
law — as  if  civil  law  could,  in  the  last  analysis,  pro- 
tect any  right.  When  there  is  love  of  money  and 
scorn  for  humanity,  civil  law  is  hopelessly  crip- 
pled. Civil  laws  were  never  yet  framed,  and  never 
will  be  framed,  which  can  not  be  eluded  by  a  nation 
of  money-worshipers. 

Before  we  condemn  Ex.  xxiii,  12,  as  a  primitive 
and  transitory  bit  of  Jewish  legalism,  let  us  bow  our 
heads  in  shame.  Let  us  confess  that  the  ideal  it  sug- 
gests is  centuries  in  advance  of  us.  Let  us  acknowl- 
edge that  conflicts  between  law  and  grace  do  not 
arise  except  when  men  refuse  to  accept  God's  saving 
suggestions.  And  as  for  the  relation  of  the  philan- 
thropic motive  to  the  eternal  motive — what  is  more 
eternal  than  love  for  men?      What  is  more  divine 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  67 

than  the  anxiety  to  give  others  rest,  opportunity, 
the  spiritual  life?  If  Ex.  xxIII,  12,  does  not  breathe 
the  love  of  a  righteous  God  for  lost  souls,  what 
scripture  breathes  It?  To  keep  the  Sabbath  for 
men's  sake,  that  they  may  keep  it,  is  to  keep  it  for 
God's  sake.  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and, 
to  the  eye  of  faith,  God  was  made  flesh  for  man. 

In  Deut.  V,  15,  (Am.  Stand.  Rev.)  the  word 
reads  as  follows:  "And  thou  shalt  remember  that 
thou  wast  a  servant  In  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  Je- 
hovah thy  God  brought  thee  out  thence  by  a  mighty 
hand  and  by  an  outstretched  arm :  therefore  Jehovah 
thy  God  commanded  thee  to  keep  the  sabbath  day." 
Here  a  national  motive  is  added  to  the  word,  which 
In  the  verse  immediately  preceding,  Deut.  v,  14,  is 
the  same  as  that  of  Ex.  xxiii,  12.  The  joining  of  the 
two  motives  Is  itself  Important.  Deut.  v,  15,  does 
not  forget  the  charitable  motive,  but  gives  it  a  larger 
significance  In  view  of  Israel's  origin  and  mission. 
But  we  must  not  pass  lightly  over  the  motive  of 
escape  from  bondage.  The  mere  escape  was  noth- 
ing, for  It  was  escape  into  the  wilderness.  But  the 
escape  as  an  escape  to  Sinai  and  the  new  covenant 
was  everything.  From  that  moment  Israel's  na- 
tional life  and  spiritual  power  really  begin.  There 
Israel  had  its  new  birth  of  freedom.  And  how? 
By  a  free  covenanting  with  God.      It  was  no  longer 


68  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

a  matter  of  conforming  to  tradition — it  was  a  free 
choice.  There  Israel  accepted  the  ten  words. 
There  he  became  a  co-worker  with  God.  To  es- 
cape from  Egypt  was  deliberately  to  choose  God's 
leadership,  and  to  accept  every  part  of  his  pure  and 
austere  worship.  There  at  Sinai  the  children  of 
Israel  deliberately  accepted  the  Sabbath  as  preem- 
inently the  mark  of  their  loyalty  to  Jehovah.  As 
such  it  was  understood  by  Isaiah,  by  Jeremiah,  by 
Ezekiel.  Thus  in  some  sense  Israel  was  a  convert 
at  Sinai,  and  his  future  vigor  was  due  to  this  fact. 
At  Sinai  Israel  was  spiritually  both  redeemed  and 
created. 

In  the  wilderness  the  struggle  for  national  exist- 
ence was  fought  out — even  as  in  our  Battle  of  the 
Wilderness  the  American  people  fought  for  national 
life.  It  was  a  struggle  for  life  in  both  cases.  Nor 
do  we  use  this  parallel  without  purpose,  for  It  sug- 
gests all  those  mysteries  of  sorrow  and  suffering 
which  the  struggle  for  national  existence  has  always 
brought.  In  our  Civil  War  we  lost  a  million  men 
that  this  nation  might  live.  One  trembles  to  think 
how  often  in  that  struggle  human  life  was  sacrificed, 
through  men's  imperfect  judgment,  for  the  national 
good.  Shall  we  venture  to  say  that  In  our  strug- 
gle God  approved  the  death  of  every  one  of  those 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  69 

million  men?  Yet  we  fought  because  we  believed 
that  God  is  marching  on. 

It  is  with  such  thoughts  as  these  that  we  approach 
the  statement  (Num.  xv,  32-36)  that  in  the  wilder- 
ness a  man  was  put  to  death,  by  express  order  of 
Jehovah,  for  gathering  sticks  on  the  Sabbath.  In 
view  of  the  national  struggle  we  can  understand  the 
rigor  of  the  sentence.  Yet  it  is  only  human  to  wish 
that  we  had  a  comment  of  our  Lord  upon  Num. 
XV,  32-36.  We  have  his  comment  upon  Lev.  xxiv, 
20,  where  it  is  expressly  commanded  by  Jehovah 
to  render  eye  for  eye  and  tooth  for  tooth.  Our 
Lord's  comment  (Matt,  v,  38)  is  well  known:  "Ye 
have  heard  that  it  was  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth;  but  I  say  unto  you.  Resist  not 
him  that  is  evil."  The  divine  command  of  Matt. 
v,  38,  supersedes  that  of  Lev.  xxiv,  20.  But  upon 
Num.  XV,  32-36,  we  have  no  such  comment. 

Two  things,  however,  are  certain:  First,  the 
death  penalty  for  Sabbath-breaking  shows  that  even 
in  the  wilderness  the  primitive  command  was  moral 
and  not  magical.  The  violated  Sabbath  did  not 
automatically  revenge  itself,  as  the  tabooed  days  of 
Egypt  and  Babylonia  were  thought  to  do.  The  of- 
fense was  rigorously  punished  on  the  ground  of  the 
national  importance  of  the  Sabbath.  Secondly, 
we  are  still  centuries  behind  the  spirit  of  Matt,  v, 


70  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

38.  We  resist  not  merely  evil,  but  him  who  is  evil; 
we  demand  eye  for  eye.  It  will  not  do  to 
condemn  the  rigor  of  primitive  morality  except  as 
we  are  striving  toward  perfection  with  equal  moral 
energy.  Even  our  Lord  came  to  send  the  sword 
as  well  as  peace,  but  only  as  a  means  to  peace.  If 
we  are  to  resist  evil  unto  blood,  it  is  not  because 
shedding  of  blood  is  good,  but  because  blood  means 
life.  All  the  great  virtues  are  tinged  with  blood. 
For  them  lives  have  been  lost  and  counted  as  gain. 
To  comment  on  Num.  xv,  32-36,  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  we  must  first  be  sure  that  we  have  caught  the 
spiritual  force  of  that  grim  story.  Not  until  our 
peaceful  vigor  equals  that  of  primitive  and  bloody 
vigor  have  we  learned  the  lesson  of  war.  "We  need 
a  moral  substitute  for  war,"  says  William  James. 
We  need,  in  short,  the  grim  courage  of  our  opinions 
when  we  know  them  to  be  in  line  with  Christ. 

We  now  pass  to  the  third  motive  for  Sabbath- 
keeping,  which  we  have  called  the  eternal  motive, 
and  which  completes  the  philanthropic  and  the  na- 
tional motive.  It  is  found  in  Genesis  ii,  3,  where  the 
Sabbath  is  associated  with  the  creation  of  the  world, 
as  in  Deut.  v,  15,  it  is  associated  with  the  redemp- 
tion and  creation  of  Israel,  and  in  Ex.  xxiii,  12, 
it  is  associated  with  the  loving  kindness  which  creates 
rest  and  opportunity  for  the  servant.      If  it  can  be 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  7 1 

shown  that  the  Hebraic  conception  of  the  world's 
creation  is  the  conception  of  a  process  fundamentally 
philanthropic  and  redemptive,  then  the  three  motives 
are  shown  to  be  one  at  heart.  This  important  unity 
can  easily  be  demonstrated,  and  without  descend- 
ing to  rabbinical  methods.  We  shall  revert  to  this 
matter  in  §11. 

Meantime  we  turn  to  a  task  quite  different.  We 
turn  to  consider  the  immense  mass  of  objections 
which  have  been  urged  against  the  first  two  chapters 
of  Genesis  by  modern  critics.  We  may  divide  these 
critics,  for  convenience,  as  (a)  the  historical,  (b) 
the  literary,  (c)  the  geological,  {d)  the  philo- 
sophical. 

The  historical  critics  assert  that  the  Sabbath  was 
connected  with  the  creation  by  the  priests  and  scribes 
for  the  purpose  of  explaining  an  institution  then 
existing,  whose  actual  origin  was  lost  in  dim  an- 
tiquity. Thus  the  critics  attempt  to  explain  the  ex- 
plainers; the  critic  explains  the  scribe.  Such,  as 
Hume  long  since  pointed  out,  is  the  method  of  all 
naturalistic  explanation;  it  is  temporal;  it  connects 
an  event  with  what  immediately  precedes  it  in  time. 
But  the  method  merely  shifts  to  the  critic  the  task 
of  the  scribe.  If  the  priestly  explanation  does  not 
satisfy,  then  of  course  the  critic  must  explain  not 
merely  the  priest  but  the  tradition  received  by  the 


72  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

priest.  The  critic  must  go  back  and  back  until  he 
comes  to  a  resting-place.  And  what  will  that  be? 
It  will  quite  as  clearly  be  "the  beginning"  as  ever 
the  priests  thought  it  to  be.  Historical  criticism 
will  be  lost  in  the  psychology  of  primitive  thought 
— as  we  have  shown  in  quoting  Delambre's  remark 
on  page  26.  It  will  then  have  to  cease  to  exist 
as  historical  criticism,  and  become  spiritual 
criticism.  It  will  end  either  with  a  Creator 
or  with  atheism.  In  either  case  it  will  have  on  its 
hands  the  philosophical  adjustment  of  the  temporal 
and  the  eternal.  It  will  have  to  deal  with  the  value 
of  the  week  and  the  Sabbath  as  a  working  solution 
of  the  problem  of  time  and  eternity.  This  is  the 
perfectly  certain  end  of  the  logical  process,  and  so  the 
historical  critic  is  set  aside.  We  are  not 
content  with  the  historical  regressus.  We  raise 
the  question  whether  eternal  truth  might  not  be  con- 
firmed or  revealed  as  well  in  the  fifth  century  be- 
fore Christ  as  in  the  ninth.  We  ask  whether 
a  priest  might  not  be  as  good  a  medium  of 
revelation  as  a  prophet.  We  find  in  the  historical 
critic  merely  another  scribe,  without  the  assurance 
that  the  critic's  insight  into  God's  methods  is  as  deep 
as  the  scribe's. 

Next  the  literary  critics.     They  confront  us  with 
the  "legal"  style  of  the  narrative.      They  say  that 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  73 

the  first  chapter  is  formal  and  precise,  showing  a 
desire  to  bring  into  an  artificial  and  priestly  scheme 
the  whole  unknown  course  of  the  world.  We 
answer  that  the  style  is  indeed  legal.  It  has  the 
august  brevity  of  the  greatest  laws.  Its  keynote  is 
brevity,  not  garrulity;  reverence,  not  speculation; 
simplicity,  not  multiplicity.  The  writer  is  so  guided 
that  he  sees  lingering  in  the  mind  of  Israel  a  longing 
for  the  mythology  of  Babylonia,  a  desire  to  pluck 
out  the  heart  of  God's  mystery.  He  meets  that 
mythologizing  tendency — which  is  not  yet  quite  dead 
in  modern  times — by  a  solemn  reticence.  God  Is 
in  heaven  and  thou  art  upon  earth;  therefore  let 
thy  words  be  few. 

No,  if  the  style  of  Genesis  is  "legal",  it  is  not 
more  so  than  the  st}de  of  the  prophets  and  sages  of 
Israel  when  they  come  face  to  face  with  "the  begin- 
ning" of  things.  The  varying  and  undulant  elo- 
quence of  the  Book  of  Job  is  admirable,  touching 
the  imagination  at  many  points  and  warning  it 
against  any  fixed  image  of  God.  But  the  varying 
and  undulant  eloquence  is  not  the  most  significant 
thing  in  Job.  The  keynote  of  the  book  is  the  sen- 
tence:  "I  will  lay  my  hands  upon  my  lips." 

In  mythology,  the  reverse  is  true.  God  does 
not  question,  but  man  prattles.  The  still  small  voice 
is  choked.      In  Greek  philosophy  we  have  a  similar 


74  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

plethora  of  words.  To  the  Greek  the  logos,  or 
reason,  is  free  play  of  mind  and  speech,  and  some- 
times this  free  play  is  merely  play.  In  modern  spec- 
ulation we  have  the  same  phenomenon;  we  have 
what  Hobbes  called  "the  frequency  of  insignificant 
speech."  We  have  a  veritable  polytheism  of  sys- 
tems, a  pantheon  of  theories.  As  William  James 
says,  philosophy  has  its  life  in  words. 

But  there  comes  a  time  when  we  must  mean  what 
we  say.  In  the  hour  of  mystery  or  of  promise,  the 
question  is  how  much  we  are  willing  to  assert  and 
maintain,  promise  and  fulfill.  The  residuum  is  al- 
ways small.  Sacred  promises  are  made  in  few 
words.  The  sincerest  philosophic  confessions  are 
the  briefest.  And  these  facts  let  us  into  the  secret 
of  Genesis,  and  also  of  John.  The  logos  of  John's 
gospel  is  not  free  speculation — though  afterwards 
the  Gnostics  so  misunderstood  it.  It  is  a  person,  in 
whom  law  and  love  meet,  and  God's  promises  are 
fulfilled.  Christ  is  a  social  and  spiritual  revelation, 
and  not  a  speculative  or  astrological  revelation. 

The  actual  residuum  of  cosmogony  in  Gen- 
esis bears  a  resemblance  undoubtedly  to  the  Baby- 
lonian conception  of  the  firmament  in  the  midst  of 
waters  above  and  beneath.  The  language  was  quite 
intelligible  to  an  audience  which  may  have  believed 
that  creation  began  by  a  struggle  between  Leviathan 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  75 

of  the  waters,  and  Jehovah  the  maker  of  heaven  and 
earth.  But  no  more  than  this  can  be  said.  The 
story  is  stripped  of  every  vestige  of  polytheism. 
Professor  Santayana  has  called  modern  science 
**myth  conscious  of  its  essential  ideality,  reduced  to 
its  fighting  weight,  and  valued  only  for  its  signifi- 
cance." If  we  were  to  take  myth  in  its  original  sense 
— a  word  about  God — there  would  be  no  objection 
to  calling  the  story  myth,  stripped  of  its  polytheism 
and  valued  only  for  its  spirituality.  But  the  word 
is  not  commonly  so  used,  and  it  is  more  accurate  to 
regard  Genesis  as  a  deliberate  criticism  of  myth- 
ology. The  writer  knew  that  Babylonia  had 
mythologized.  That  way  magic  and  materialism 
lie,  and  he  spoke  against  both.  Later  we  shall  see 
that  his  words  had  a  still  profounder  meaning. 

We  next  turn  to  the  scientific  critics.  By  these 
we  mean,  not  the  scientific  historical  critics,  but  the 
geological  critics.  They  tell  us  that  in  certain 
respects  the  Mosaic  order  of  creation  is  literal- 
ly at  variance  with  the  theories  of  modern  ge- 
ology. But  we  are  not  attempting  in  this  book 
to  reconcile  literal  variances;  we  are  doing  our 
best  to  pursue  a  discussion  on  a  different  and 
much  higher  plane.  Our  notes  will  furnish  refer- 
ences entirely  adequate  to  the  investigation  of  Gene- 
sis and  geology  on  the  plane  of  literalism. 


76  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

And  we  call  especial  attention  to  the  "Omphalos" 
of  the  biologist  Philip  Gosse.  There  is  a  very  per- 
fect effort  to  force  spiritual  method  and  literal  meth- 
od into  one,  and  there  is  nothing  more  cruelly  pa- 
thetic in  the  history  of  theology.  It  was  a  complete 
failure  to  satisfy  either  Christians  or  geologists. 
"The  theory,"  says  Gosse's  son,  "was  that  there  had 
been  no  gradual  modification  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  but.  that  when  the  catastrophic  act  of  crea- 
tion took  place,  the  world  presented,  instantly,  the 
structural  appearance  of  a  planet  in  which  life  had 
long  existed.  The  theory,  coarsely  enough,  was  de- 
fined by  a  hasty  press  as  being  this — that  God  hid 
the  fossils  in  the  rock  in  order  to  tempt  geologists 
into  infidelity.  .  .  .  Adam  would  certainly  possess  hair 
and  teeth  and  bones  in  a  condition  which  it  must 
have  taken  many  years  to  accomplish,  yet  he  was 
created  full-grown  yesterday.  He  would  certainly 
display  an  omphalos,  yet  no  umbilical  cord  had  ever 
attached  him  to  a  mother.  .  .  .  This  'Omphalos,'  my 
father  thought,  was  to  bring  all  the  turmoil  of  sci- 
entific speculation  to  a  close,  and  fling  geology  into 
the  arms  of  Scripture.  .  .  .  But,  alas!  atheists  and 
Christians  alike  looked  at  it  and  laughed.  .  .  .  Dar- 
win continued  silent,  the  youthful  Huxley  was  scorn- 
ful, and  even  Charles  Kingsley  .  .  .  wrote  that  'he 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  77 

could  not  give  up  the  painful  and  slow  conclusion 
of  five  and  twenty  years'  study  of  geology,  and  be- 
lieve that  God  has  written  on  the  rocks  one  enor- 
mous and  superfluous  lie.'  ,  .  .  My  father  could  not 
recover  from  amazement  at  having  offended  every- 
body by  an  enterprise  which  had  been  undertaken 
in  the  cause  of  universal  reconciliation.  .  .  .  How 
much  devotion  had  he  given  .  .  .  only  to  be  left 
storming  around  this  red  morass  [the  newly  made 
lawn  where  Gosse  used  wearily  to  exercise]  with  no 
one  in  the  world  to  care  for  him  except  one  pale- 
faced  child  with  its  cheek  pressed  to  the  window." 

Such  was  the  typical  and  heart-breaking  result  of 
literalism  in  religion  clashing  with  literalism  In  sci- 
ence— for  there  is  literalism  even  In  geology.  What 
then?  Are  we  to  side  with  geology  against  Gene- 
sis? The  established  results  of  modern  geology, 
so  far  as  a  growing  science  can  boast  of  established 
results,  we  do  not  question.  But  Is  geology  a  form 
of  theology?  No  great  geologist  would  say  so; 
none  would  make  such  a  pretension.  Geology  does 
not  deal  with  "the  beginning,"  but  with  the  long 
process  of  becoming.  Genesis,  too,  speaks  of  the 
process  of  becoming,  but  speaks  as  If  it  were  brief. 
Is  there  a  contradiction  here?  Literally  there  is, 
but  not  spiritually.      Geology  does  not  pretend  to 


78  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

fasten  upon  God's  nature  the  aeons  of  becoming 
by  which  it  strives  to  Interpret  the  earth.  It  can 
not  and  does  not  insist  that  God's  activity  is  infi- 
nitely tedious,  but  only  that  to  finite  comprehension 
it  may  seem  so.  Even  to  geology  time  is  not  neces- 
sarily long;  the  "length"  can  not  be  apprehended  save 
as  the  imagination  foreshortens  It.  Even  in  the 
scientific  imagination  there  is  the  eternal  present 
which  transcends  time,  and  were  it  not  so,  no  ge- 
ologist could  reason  at  all  about  the  past.  A  thou- 
sand years,  nay  a  million,  must  be  to  him  as  yester- 
day when  it  Is  past — it  must  be  as  a  watch 
in  the  night.  If  he  attempted  the  folly  of 
trying  to  grasp  the  seons  which  his  mathematics 
postulate,  he  would  go  mad.  If  he  attempted  to 
realize  in  his  petty  attention  the  Infinite  shades  of 
change  in  the  making  of  earth,  he  would  be  swallowed 
in  vastness  as  hopelessly  as  any  Hindu  dreamer. 
Geology  talks  of  periods,  but  It  knows  very  well 
that  there  are  no  periods  In  geologic  time.  No  man 
can  fix  the  point  of  time  when  the  carboniferous  be- 
came the  permian,  or  the  tertiary  the  modern.  Our 
"periods,"  a  philosophic  geologist  would  say,  "are 
just  so  much  harmless  mythology,  that  we  use  as 
helps  to  thought."  The  ages  of  geology  are  not  the 
ages  of  God. 

As  for  the  days  of  Genesis,  It  Is  absolutely  es- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  79 

sential  that  we  escape  all  literalism  in  striving  to 
comprehend  their  meaning.  That  they  have  a 
meaning,  profound  and  lasting,  is  a  religious  belief. 
To  know  what  that  meaning  Is,  spiritually  and  not 
literally,  spiritually  and  not  magically,  is  in  some 
sense  our  entire  task  in  this  book.  God  does  not 
literally  live  In  days — he  Inhablteth  eternity.  He 
is  not  conditioned  by  evening  and  morning — for 
the  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  him. 
He  does  not  literally  work — the  worlds  were  framed 
by  his  word.  He  does  not  literally  rest — "my 
Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work."  All  these 
things  are  parables,  and  It  is  for  us  to  know  them 
spiritually — not  literally  and  not  magically.  If  we 
attempt  the  task  of  literal  or  magical  reconciliation 
between  things  which  are  spiritually  true,  we  shall 
get  as  a  result  "oppositions  of  science  falsely  so 
called." 

Scripture  throws  light  on  scripture.  Gen.  I,  2, 
shows  us  God  alone  with  his  work;  we  see  spirit 
giving  form  to  matter.  But  Proverbs  viil  shows  us 
"Wisdom"  there  in  the  beginning.  Before  the  earth 
was,  she  was.  When  he  marked  out  the  foundations 
of  things,  there  she  was  by  him,  as  a  master  workman. 
And  when  we  consider  that  to  the  spiritual  thought 
of  the  Old  Testament  wisdom  Is  righteousness,  is 
duty,  the  picture  becomes  even  more  vivid.      God's 


8o  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

duty  was  with  him.  In  making  earth  he  did  an  act 
of  justice  and  of  mercy,  and  his  duty  was  daily  his 
delight.  Wisdom  rejoiced  as  she  worked.  As 
Phillips  Brooks  said:  "Wisdom  is  older  than 
sorrow." 

In  Job,  God  withdraws  once  more  into  his  alone- 
ness — not  because  Proverbs  viii  is  spiritually  untrue; 
but  because  Job's  scientific  pretensions  were  arro- 
gant. Though  we  have  just  learned  in  Proverbs 
that  wisdom,  joyful  duty,  was  the  master  workman, 
Jehovah  demands  of  Job,  "Whereupon  were  the 
foundations  fastened,  or  who  laid  the  corner-stone 
thereof?"  Then  follows  a  series  of  comments  on 
animal  life,  a  series  which  might  well  be  read  by 
every  Christian  who  has  just  laid  down  his  "Origin 
of  Species."  Job  listens,  for  he  must.  He  that 
argueth  with  God  must  reply.  And  Job  replies,  in 
a  spirit  which  every  true  scientist  would  apply  to 
himself,  "I  am  of  small  account." 

Then  in  John  comes  the  statement  that  the  Word 
was  with  God  in  the  beginning,  and  that  the  worlds 
were  made  through  him.  We  are  not  unaware  of 
the  history  of  the  term  logos  In  Heraclitean  and 
Stoic  thought,  in  Egyptian  speculation,  in  the  emana- 
tion-subtleties of  Neoplatonism  and  of  Gnosticism. 
This  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  attempt  any  esti- 
mate of  the   spiritual  value  of  those   speculations, 

(6) 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  8  I 

much  less  of  their  scientific  value.  What  has  pre- 
viously been  said  (§i)  about  the  unity  of  man's 
spiritual  aspirations  applies  in  general  here.  But 
we  say  that  John  throws  spiritual  light  upon  Gene- 
sis. "The  Spirit  of  God — the  wind  of  Elohim — 
brooded  upon  the  deep."  That  austere  answer  was 
enough  to  ancient  Israel,  casting  about  among  Baby- 
lonian mythology  for  ways  to  surprise  the  secrets 
of  God.  Tiamat — the  dragon  of  the  deep — is  no 
person;  it  is  tehom,  the  deep;  and  on  that  shall  no 
more  be  said.  But,  says  John,  if  you  would  know 
what  that  spirit  of  Elohim  was,  look  at  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  was  redeeming  love. 
Creation  was  the  redemption  of  chaos.  If  you 
would  know  the  nature  of  tehom,  the  deep,  look 
into  the  chaos  of  your  own  unredeemed  heart  as  It 
was  before  the  light  of  creative  love  made  it  a  new 
heart.  If  you  search  for  the  "scientific"  beginning, 
you  shall  not  find  it.  Enough  If  you  know  by  ex- 
perience the  meaning  of  "a  new  creature."  Enough 
if  by  the  eye  of  faith  you  see  that  Creation  itself  Is 
God's  sacrifice  of  self,  the  refusal  to  accept  an  un- 
disturbed and  unethical  eternity.  He  Is  too  spir- 
itual, too  holy,  to  be  content  with  nothing  but  end- 
less ages  of  astronomy.  He  must  create  beings 
who  can  suffer  and  choose  and  achieve,  and  he  must 
suffer  with  and  for  them.     It  is  a  great  mystery,  but 


82  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

how  infinitely  nobler  it  is  than  a  universe  of  mere 
mechanics  1 

In  these  various  comments  of  scripture  upon  scrip- 
ture, spiritual  search-lights  are  thrown  here  and 
there  upon  man's  finite  thought,  all  to  the  end  that 
he  may  be  saved  from  false  oppositions,  false  lit- 
eralism, false  signs.  The  first  two  chapters  of 
Genesis  contain  within  themselves  precisely  such 
mutual  illumination.  It  has  been  asserted  by  his- 
torical criticism  that  the  second  chapter  is  the  earlier. 
Let  it  be  granted.  Then  the  two  chapters  present 
a  composite  narrative.  Can  we  spare  either  part  of 
it?  The  object  of  the  first  is  to  present  a  synoptic 
picture  of  the  whole  process;  the  second  foreshort- 
ens all  this  picture  till  the  making  of  man  occupies 
the  foreground.  In  the  first  chapter,  "God  creat- 
ed man  in  his  own  image."  The  phrase  is  brief, 
and  "created"  is  necessarily  vague.  In  the  second 
chapter  we  read:  "Jehovah  God  formed  man  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life;  and  man  became  a  living  soul." 
Both  accounts  use  physical  figures,  but  the  one  sup- 
plements the  other,  warns  us  not  to  accept  it  literally. 
It  is  he  that  has  made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves; 
but  he  has  not  carved  us  out  of  stone,  or  moulded 
us  out  of  dust,  or  forged  us  out  of  metal;  he  has 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  83 

made  bodies  for  us,  but  has  breathed  Into  us  the  di- 
vine breath,  and  we  are  of  inspired  origin. 

When  such  facts  of  Scripture  are  pondered, 
surely  the  last  vestige  of  any  spiritual  conflict  be- 
tween Genesis  and  geology  must  disappear.  It  is 
an  imaginary  conflict,  and  fades  away  when  both 
Genesis  and  geology  are  viewed  stib  specie  aeterni- 
talis. 

§10.  The  work  and  the  rest  of  God. — But  a  spir- 
itual view  of  the  world  is  our  goal,  it  is  never  quite 
an  achievement.  And  the  philosophic  critics  warn 
us  that  In  emphasizing  the  symbolic  nature  of  hu- 
man thought  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  all  sense  of 
reality.  Does  there  then  remain  a  philosophical 
problem  after  the  scientific  problem  disappears? 
For  example,  is  it  unphllosophlcal  to  regard  God 
as  a  creator?  Aristotle  maintained  that  the  Good 
created  the  animals;  but  may  It  not  be  answered 
that  "good"  and  "animals"  are  concepts  which  are 
wholly  disparate,  and  that  no  amount  of  Ingenuity 
can  establish  a  causal  nexus  between  them? 
Naturalism  regards  God  and  nature  as  Incommensur- 
able and  unreconcllable,  and  therefore  abandons 
God.  Genesis  speaks  of  the  work  and  the  rest 
of  God.  Naturalism  denies  both,  and  substitutes 
the  work  of  eternal  energy,  and  the  rest  of  eternal 
death. 


84  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Even  Hoffding,  who  is  by  no  means  a  naturalist, 
says:  "If  the  dogma  of  creation  offers  an  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  the  world,  we  must  mean  by 
explanation  something  very  different  from  what  is 
meant  by  it  in  scientific  thought.  To  cease  thinking 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  begin  under- 
standing." 

Hoffding  is  a  learned,  an  acute,  a  thorough 
thinker,  and  we  may  take  his  statement  as 
representative  of  modern  philosophy  in  this 
matter.  But  he  is  surely  too  accomplished  a 
psychologist  not  to  know  that,  after  all,  even  in  sci- 
ence, understanding  does  sometimes  begin  when 
thinking  ceases.  We  can  not  scientifically  quite  un- 
derstand how  a  man  can  raise  his  arm;  we  can  not 
understand  it  unless  we  stop  thinking  about  it,  and 
proceed  to  do  the  act.  It  was  a  profound  remark 
of  Goethe  that  "The  thinker  makes  a  great  mistake 
when  he  inquires  after  cause  and  effect;  they  both 
together  constitute  the  indivisible  phenomenon." 

Professor  Hoffding  is  an  admirer — as  who  Is 
not? — of  the  intellectual  achievements  of  Goethe. 
In  Hoffding's  remarkable  book  on  the  philosophy 
of  religion,  it  is  Goethe  who  furnishes  the  mottoes 
of  the  most  significant  chapters.  And  perhaps  we 
may  venture  at  this  point,  in  the  face  both  of  nat- 
uralism  and  of  Hoffding's   intellectual   despair,   to 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  85 

quote  certain  other  remarks  of  Goethe.  One  is  this : 
"There  is  no  limit  to  the  increase  of  experience, 
but  theories  can  not  in  like  manner  become  clearer 
and  more  perfect.  Therefore  all  modes  of  looking 
on  the  world  must  repeat  themselves ;  and  this  leads 
to  a  curious  result,  namely,  that  with  extended  ex- 
perience a  limited  theory  may  again  come  into 
favor."  This  would  seem  to  have  some  bearing  on 
Genesis.  Still  another:  "I  am  convinced  that  the 
Bible  will  always  appear  more  beautiful  the  more  we 
understand  it."  And  another:  "The  reason  why 
the  Bible  has  such  an  unceasing  influence  is  because 
no  one,  as  long  as  the  world  endures,  will  ever  arise 
and  say:  I  grasp  the  work  as  a  whole,  and  under- 
stand it  in  all  Its  parts.  But  we  say  humbly :  As  a 
whole  let  us  respect  it,  and  In  its  parts  apply  It." 
Finally:  "To  the  several  perversities  of  the  day 
a  man  should  always  oppose  the  great  masses  of 
universal  history." 

These  remarks  of  Goethe  should  put  us  In  the 
mood  to  receive  with  respectful  attention  and  our 
utmost  spiritual  Insight  the  first  two  chapters  of  the 
Bible,  In  spite  of  all  the  contempt  which  is  poured 
upon  creationism  by  modern  philosophy.  That  con- 
tempt may  be,  In  Goethe's  phrase,  one  of  the  per- 
versities of  the  day.  When  it  is  asserted  that  "there 
never  was  a  beginning,"  It  is  possible  that  the  asser- 


86  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tion  is  merely  self-betrayal;  for  in  the  materialistic 
mind  spirituality  has  indeed  had,  as  yet,  no  be- 
ginning. 

We  have  seen  that  modern  philosophy  has  suc- 
ceeded, in  the  case  of  several  schools,  in  erecting 
noble  ideals  of  God.  The  trouble  has  not  been  with 
the  ideals,  but  with  the  exact  intellectual  demonstra- 
tion of  them.  They  have  not  been  generally  ac- 
cepted by  thinkers  because  they  have  not  been 
cogently  systematized  by  close  reasoning.  We  have 
admitted  our  own  complete  inability  to  conclude  any 
one  of  the  abstract  lines  of  verification  which  might 
establish  some  one  system  beyond  cavil.  We  have, 
to  adopt  Hoffding's  scornful  phrase  with  boldness, 
ceased  thinking.  And  yet  we  have  not  admitted  that 
he  who  ceases  thinking  must  utterly  fail  to  under- 
stand. Therefore  we  return  to  some  of  the  neglect- 
ed realities  of  philosophy,  some  of  the  ideals  of 
perfection. 

And  fir^t  there  is  an  ideal  concerning  the  work 
and  the  rest  of  God.  It  is  symbolized  in  the  brief 
words  of  Genesis,  words  which  are  a  solemn  as- 
surance that  it  has  a  profound  meaning  for  us.  It 
is  dialectically  stated  in  Greek  thought  as  early  as 
Aristotle.  We  may  speak  therefore  of  the  rela- 
tions   of   Aristotle's   ideal   to   Genesis.       Aristotle 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  87 

Strives  to  reconcile  motion,  activity,  energy,  work, 
with  God's  eternal  peace. 

Plato,  indeed,  had  foreshadowed  Aristotle's  ideal. 
"Can  we  ever  be  made  to  believe,"  he  says,  "that 
motion  and  life  and  soul  are  not  present  with  perfect 
being?  Can  we  imagine  that  being  is  devoid  of  life 
and  mind,  and  exists  in  awful  unmeaningness  an 
everlasting  fixture?  .  .  .  The  philosopher  can  not  pos- 
sibly accept  the  notion  of  those  who  say  that  the 
whole  is  at  rest,  either  as  unity  or  in  many  forms; 
and  he  will  be  utterly  deaf  to  those  who  assert  uni- 
versal motion.  As  children  say  entreatingly,  'Give 
us  both,'  so  he  will  include  both  the  movable  and  the 
immovable  in  his  definition  of  being  and  all." 
Starting  from  this  necessity  of  our  nature,  Aristotle 
distinguishes  between  motion,  or  change,  and  true 
energy  or  function.  The  former  is  the  latter  in 
the  process  of  attaining  its  goal.  True  energy  is 
active,  but  it  is  activity  with  a  purpose,  and  it  trans- 
cends the  mere  idea  of  change.  Energy  therefore, 
in  the  Aristotelian  sense,  is  marked  by  eternal 
achievement  of  purpose,  self-realizing  activity. 
This  Aristotelian  use  of  "energy"  is  highly  technical, 
but  it  is  extremely  important  in  the  history  of 
thought.  Nor  is  it  irrelevant  to  Genesis.  Indeed, 
it  was  a  deliberate  effort  to  give  real  meaning  to  the 
word    genesis     {y€vem<i)     which    Plato    had    used 


88  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

to  supplement  his  idea  of  being.  Genesis  is  not  a 
mere  temporal  process;  it  is  the  function  of  pur- 
posive activity. 

Perhaps  we  seem  to  have  plunged  once  more  into 
a  world  of  mere  words.  How  can  there 
be  activity  without  motion?  Aristotle  would 
answer  that  the  question  springs  from  our  own  weak- 
ness of  spiritual  nature.  God's  energy  is  perfect, 
because  his  strength  is  equal  to  a  purposeful  activity 
in  which  there  is  no  defeat.  He  is  infinitely  active, 
and  glad  in  his  perfect  work.  In  his  work  he  is  at 
rest.  The  fulfilment  of  perfect  functioning  is  ease- 
ful and  joyful.  Work  is  being  done,  but  the  pur- 
pose at  every  point  conquers  the  resistance,  and  the 
victory  is  complete  always. 

In  the  divine  activity,  then,  as  conceived  by  Aris- 
totle, time  is  real,  but  not  ultimately  stubborn.  God 
is  not  utterly  timeless,  in  the  sense  that  he  is  geo- 
metrical; but  he  transcends  time  in  every  pulse  of  his 
activity,  conquering  death  by  his  perfect  life.  As 
Doctor  Schiller  puts  It,  "Time  is  the  measure  of  the 
impermanence  of  the  Imperfect,  and  the  perfecting 
of  the  time-consciousness  would  carry  us  out  of  Time 
Into  Eternity." 

Such  Is  Aristotle's  Ideal  of  God,  and  It  Is  no  un- 
worthy contribution  to  our  study  of  Genesis.  We 
do  not  say  that  it  has  been  philosophically  estab- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  89 

lished  to  the  satisfaction  of  every  thinker,  but  we 
say  that  It  shows  spiritual  Insight.  What  is  crea- 
tion but  a  symbol  of  God's  righteous  purpose,  his 
eternal  life,  his  heaven?  In  heaven,  as  Christians 
strive  to  conceive  it,  there  is  precisely  what  Aris- 
totle predicates  of  God — perfect  activity  without  fa- 
tigue, perfect  life  without  decay,  perfect  rest  with- 
out sloth. 

But  the  instant  comment  of  every  practical  mind 
must  be — heaven  Is  high,  we  can  not  attain  unto  It. 
That  Is  also  the  thought  of  Genesis.  God  accom- 
modates his  perfect  rest-in-activity  to  man.  He 
admits  the  imperfect,  the  changing,  the  impermanent. 
And  he  knows  that  the  very  conditions  of  human  life 
make  heaven  on  earth  unattainable.  Yet  In  the 
midst  of  time  there  may  be  a  practical  sym- 
bol of  the  eternal;  there  may  be  the  weekly 
Sabbath,  type  of  heaven.  There  may  be  six 
days  of  consecrated  work,  followed  by  one 
of  consecrated  rest.  And  In  this  pulsing  of 
the  weeks  there  may  be  a  moving  Image  of  eternity. 
A  man  can  not  work  and  rest  at  the  same  time;  he 
Is  not  God.  But  he  can  consecrate  his  work,  and 
from  the  Sabbath  he  may  renew  the  eternal  life 
which  shall  help  him  to  give  some  sabbatic  quality 
to  the  work  days.  Time  Is  Itself  sacred — not  in  the 
magical     sense,     not     In     the     polytheistic     sense 


90  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

— but  in  the  sense  that  It  can  be  conse- 
crated. As  the  years  go  by,  the  pressure  of  work 
will  increase,  until  men  are  strained  and  worn  by 
even  their  consecrated  labors.  Increasingly  then 
there  will  be  the  need  of  the  Sabbath. 

Yet  what  will  not  partisan  spirit  cry  out?  It 
will  ask,  How  do  you  know  that  one  day  in  seven 
is  the  necessary  ratio — much  less  any  particular  day? 
If  the  appeal  is  to  scientific  rather  than  re- 
vealed knowledge,  we  do  not  know.  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  establish  the  weekly  rest- 
day  on  a  scientific  basis.  There  are  needs 
that  science  can  not  establish,  for  science  fol- 
lows upon  life,  not  precedes  it.  The  notion  that 
science  can  establish  spiritual  institutions  is  precisely 
one  of  those  "perversities  of  the  day,"  of  which 
Goethe  speaks.  To  it  we  can  oppose  only  the  larger 
masses  of  universal  history,  seen  in  the  light  of 
universal  need.  People  will  never  understand  Sal> 
bathism  until  they  try  it,  and  try  it  on  a  high  spir- 
itual plane. 

The  last  man  who  will  attempt  to  understand  the 
ideal  of  spiritual  sabbathism  is  the  scientific  man. 
Yet  of  all  men  he  needs  the  Sabbath  most.  The 
constant  practice  of  weighing  and  measuring  facts 
is  work  of  the  most  exhausting  sort.  Unquestion- 
ably it  produces  a  habit  of  mind  which  is  unspir- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  9 1 

itual.  The  scientist  will  retort  that  what  we  under- 
stand as  spirituality  he  understands  as  mythol- 
ogy, or  at  best  as  poetry.  We  pass  the  mythological 
slur,  recalling  Huxley's  words  (§8).  But  when  we 
remember  the  poetry  of  the  Psalms  and  the  music 
of  Haydn's  "Creation",  we  partly  accept  the  inter- 
pretation. And  we  remind  the  scientific  man  of  Dar- 
win's confession  that  if  he  had  his  life  to  live  over, 
he  would  give  attention  to  poetry  and  to  music.  His 
mind,  he  said,  seemed  to  have  become  a  machine 
for  the  observation  of  facts  and  the  forming  of  gen- 
eralizations. Darwin,  always  courageous  and  truth- 
ful, said  in  these  words  what  every  weary  scientist 
may  well  ponder.  Poetry  and  music  would  have 
rested  Darwin  by  what  is  superficially  called  "change 
of  work."  But  what  a  change !  They  would  have 
unfixed  his  patient  gaze  from  the  machinery  of  the 
universe,  the  never-ceasing  wheels  of  time,  and 
turned  it  toward  the  world  of  spiritual  values.  Must 
the  scientist  eternally  describe  and  never  appreciate? 
Shall  the  world  of  love  and  hope  and  joy  grow  more 
and  more  unreal  to  him,  more  and  more  a  mere 
"epiphenomenon"?  These  are  real  questions,  as 
real  as  the  question  of  any  Sunday  law. 

§11.  Creation  and  redemption. — We  have  found 
that  the  conception  of  God's  work  and  rest,  his  per- 
fect functioning  of  personal  activity,  is  by  no  means 


92  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

a  bit  of  childish  mythology,  but  a  clew  which  was 
seized  upon  by  Aristotle  as  the  most  promising  of 
all  philosophical  clews.  We  now  inquire  a  little 
further  as  to  the  nature  of  God's  work  and  rest. 

For  there  are  many  phases  of  the  creation  prob- 
lem, and  skeptical  inquirers,  from  Job  to  Jbnathan 
Edwards,  have  insisted  on  knowing  the  relation  of 
creation  to  redemption.  Did  God  create  evil? 
Could  he  make  man  without  accepting  the  blame  for 
man's  sin?  Is  man  really  free?  How  could  God 
make  matter  out  of  nothing?  How  can  there,  in- 
deed, be  a  first  cause  of  things,  when  every  cause 
In  turn  requires  explanation?  Such  are  the  ancient 
problems  of  theology. 

They  are  not  unimportant.  They  are  not  im- 
practical. They  are  not  puzzles  of  the  lecture  room 
and  the  study.  They  are  the  problems  confronted 
and  seriously  reckoned  with  by  Job,  by  Isaiah,  by 
Plato,  by  the  Buddha — by  every  man  possessed  of 
deep  feeling.  Isaiah  actually  cuts  the  gordian  knot 
in  one  place  when  he  makes  Jehovah  cry:  "I  create 
evil — /  am  Jehovah!"  And  yet  the  Jehovah  of 
Isaiah  hates  evil  as  profoundly  as  It  Is  possible  to 
hate  it. 

But  these  very  Important  antitheses  have  never 
been  solved  except  to  and  by  the  will.  They  are 
solved  by  doing.     There  Is  such  a  thing  as  a  calculus 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  93 

of  the  motions  of  piano-keys  in  motion,  but  the 
little  child  who  plays  by  ear  does  not  know  it,  nor 
indeed  does  the  greatest  pianist  know  it.  A  night- 
ingale can  draw  harmony  out  of  the  atmosphere; 
mathematics  can  not.  A  spiritual  activity  then  is 
able  to  reconcile,  for  us,  the  antithesis  of  these  prob- 
lems. Sometimes  that  activity  must  be  stern;  some- 
times the  struggle  against  sin  must  proceed  without 
the  sense  of  God's  perfect  joy  and  rest  in  labor.  But 
evil  can  be  destroyed  through  the  grace  of  God  and 
the  effort  of  the  forgiven  soul.  The  will  can  be 
proved  free  both  by  using  it  and  by  surrendering  it. 
Even  "a  first  cause"  can  partly  be  understood,  as 
we  shall  presently  see. 

All  these  facts  are  clearly  enough  suggested  in  the 
Bible.  They  are  In  the  plan  of  creation  and  the  plan 
of  salvation,  and  these  plans  are  one.  It  Is  a  little 
unfashionable  today  to  speak  of  the  plan  of  salva- 
tion, and  Indeed  the  phrase  may  be  abused.  Man 
Is  not  so  well  acquainted  with  the  plans  of  God  as 
some  theologians  have  assumed.  But  that  God 
has  a  plan  of  creation  and  salvation,  that  he  has  an 
eternal  and  joyful  purpose — to  deny  this  is  to  adopt 
the  planlessness  of  eternal  energy,  and  the  pur- 
poselessness  of  eternal  death. 

The  spiritual  solution  of  the  problems  is,  we  re- 
peat,  suggested  In  many  places  In  the   Bible,   and 


94  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

illumines  the  entire  Book.  The  whole  history,  the 
whole  movement  of  the  Book  is  a  solution.  This 
is  what  we  mean  by  saying  that  creation  and  re- 
demption are  inseparable,  and  that  creation  centers 
in  Christ.  The  thought  is  not  new.  It  has  indeed 
been  impaired  by  the  excesses  of  overzealous  ad- 
vocates. T^-pologists  have  allegorized  about  it. 
They  have  given  the  plainest  facts  occult  meaning. 
Everything  is  a  t}'pe  of  something,  and  nothing  is 
literally  true — to  a  certain  t^-pe  of  thinker.  Christ 
has  been  made  central  by  astronomical  calculations 
and  decentralized  by  Gnostic  speculation.  There 
has  always  been  this  conflict  between  t^'pology  and 
the  historical  interpretation  of  the  Bible.  But  we 
can  not  deny  the  instinct  to  seek  God  in  history, 
for  he  is  our  supreme  need.  That  instinct  is  like 
the  self-orientation  of  the  carrier-dove,  who  seeks 
her  home.  "Thou  hast  made  us  for  thyself,"  cries 
Augustine,  "and  our  souls  are  restless  till  they  rest 
in  thee." 

That  there  is  a  profound  spiritual  continuity  be- 
tween the  older  and  the  later  concepts  of  God  in  the 
Bible  is  clear  enough  when  we  glance  at  the  mean- 
ing of  certain  words.  The  word  Jeshua,  for  ex- 
ample, means.  Jehovah  is  salvation;  and  Jesus  is 
the  same  word  as  Jeshua.  When,  therefore,  in 
Isaiah,  Jehovah  says,  "I  am  thy  saviour  and  thy  re- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  95 

deemer,"  he  is  almost  literally  saying,  "My  name 
is  Jesus  the  redeemer."  We  may  give  Isaiah's 
words  whatever  qualification  a  sound  historical  crit- 
icism may  prescribe.  But  the  flashing  spiritual  con- 
tinuity of  those  two  ideals,  Jehov^ah  and  Jesus,  is 
absolutely  unmistakable.  Jehovah  the  creator  is 
spiritually  one  with  Jesus  the  redeemer.  Theo- 
logical and  historical  questions  arise,  but  there  can 
be  no  question  as  to  the  nature  of  the  spiritual 
hunger  which  was  answered  by  both  conceptions. 

The  account  of  creation  is  followed  by  the  story 
of  the  fall.  Yet  there  is  continuity  of  creation. 
We  may  prefer  to  call  it  re-creation,  but  the  terms 
are  spiritually  inseparable.  When  the  psalmist 
cries,  ''Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  and  renew  a 
right  spirit  within  me,"  there  is  no  logical  hair- 
splitting. The  psalm  is  a  prayer  for  help:  and 
men  in  need  of  help  do  not  quibble  about  words. 
The  psalmist,  who  cries  from  out  the  depths,  may 
indifferently  be  regarded  as  sunk  in  despair,  or  un- 
ransomed  from  the  power  of  evil,  or  unredeemed, 
or  unavenged  upon  his  adversary,  or  sick  for  heal- 
ing, or  in  need  of  creation,  or  in  need  of  re-creation. 
Jehovah  meets  the  stubbornness  of  Israel  with  pos- 
itive assurance  that  his  creative  power  goes  on: 
"I  have  showed  thee  new  things  from  this  time. 
.  .  .  They  are  created  now,  and  not  from  of  old." 


96  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

In  any  typical  chapter  of  scripture  we  shall  find 
a  variety  of  figures  for  the  same  underlying  need. 
Again  in  Isaiah  Jehovah  cries,  "I  will  say  to  the 
north,  Give  up,  and  to  the  south.  Keep  not  back; 
bring  my  sons  from  far,  and  my  daughters  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth;  every  one  that  is  called  by  my 
name,  and  whom  I  have  created  for  my  glory,  whom 
I  have  formed,  yea,  whom  I  have  made.  ...  Ye 
are  my  witnesses,  saith  Jehovah,  and  my  servant 
whom  I  have  chosen.  ...  I,  even  I,  am  Jehovah; 
and  besides  me  there  is  no  saviour."  Here  is  a 
particular  historical  situation,  and  it  is  met  by  a 
variety  of  appeal  which  is  passionate  with  love  and 
warning.  Father,  creator,  maker,  he  who  demands 
living  witnesses  before  the  nations,  the  master  of  the 
servant,  the  only  saviour — six  images  of  one  spir- 
itual fact — six  phrases  of  one  spiritual  language. 

When  we  come  to  the  New  Testament  thinkers 
the  typology  becomes  extremely  rich.  The  con- 
tinuity of  creation  is  tremendously  asserted  by  John, 
who  identifies  the  Christ  with  the  creative  word  of 
God.  Paul,  trained  in  rabbinical  schools,  has  an 
elaborate  and  powerful  study  of  the  first  and  the 
second  Adam.  The  author  of  Hebrews  sees  the 
priesthood  as  a  shadow  of  Christ.  The  evangelists 
find  in  Christ  the  fulfillment  of  every  Messianic 
prophecy.  The  passages  are  too  familiar  to  re- 
(7) 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  97 

quire  quotation,  but  they  all  bear  witness  to  the  in- 
separable nature  of  creation  and  redemption.  It 
is  a  process  which  will  not  end  till  death  is  swallowed 
up  in  victory. 

Such  in  the  barest  outline  with  many  phases  un- 
touched is  the  biblical  network  of  symbolism  by 
which  God's  eternal  life  is  related  to  man's  imper- 
fection, sin  and  death.  It  is  not  to  be  treated  as  a 
system  of  magical  knowledge,  but  as  a  revelation 
suited  to  our  very  simple  and  very  poignant  spiritual 
needs.  It  must  form  the  background  against  which 
all  scientific  efforts  to  explain  the  world  are  to  be 
viewed.  It  is  woven  with  the  colors  of  life.  It  is 
rich  with  all  the  varieties  of  normal  religious  ex- 
perience. Any  philosophy  which  offers  a  sys- 
tematic view  of  the  world  must  compete  with  it  in 
richness,  variety  and  reality.  The  scene  must  be 
largely  handled.  The  food  must  satisfy  the  great 
hunger  of  the  soul. 

Against  such  a  background,  then,  appear  the  va- 
rious technical  problems  of  creationism.  When  we 
are  told  that  creation  does  not  explain,  we  are  told 
that  God  does  not  explain;  that  redemption  does 
not  explain;  that  all  the  intricate  network  of  re- 
ligious imagination  is  an  illusion,  that  it  is  a  mere 
rainbow.       But  the   Christian   remembers  that  the 


98  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

rainbow  means  eternal  hope,  and  that  it  stands  un- 
moved above  the  roaring  cataract  of  time. 

A  first  cause  is  intellectually  an  inscrutable  puzzle. 
Any  child,  being  told  that  God  made  all  things,  may 
inquire.  But  who  made  God?  There  never  was  a 
clever  child  who  did  not  experience  that  doubt,  and 
there  never  was  one  who  could  permanently  retain 
it.  Every  philosopher  has  denied  the  possibility  of 
dogmatizing  about  a  first  cause,  and  every  philos- 
opher has  ended  by  dogmatizing  about  it.  Spencer's 
case  is  well  known,  and  typical.  The  section  on  the 
Unknowable,  in  his  First  Principles,  is  at  bottom, 
in  spite  of  his  struggling  protestations,  both  in- 
tensely religious  and  intensely  dogmatic.  That  it 
was  religious  he  admitted.  That  it  was  dogmatic 
has  repeatedly  been  shown.  He  says:  "Every  one 
has  heard  of  the  king  who  wished  he  had  been  pres- 
ent at  the  creation  of  the  world  that  he  might  have 
given  good  advice.  He  was  humble,  however,  com- 
pared with  those  who  profess  to  understand  not 
only  the  relation  of  the  creating  to  the  created,  but 
also  how  the  creating  is  constituted.  And  yet  this 
transcendent  audacity  which  claims  to  penetrate  the 
secrets  of  the  power  manifested  to  us  through  all 
existence — nay,  even  to  stand  behind  that  power  and 
note  the  conditions  to  its  action — this  it  is  which 
passes  current  as  piety!      May  we  not  without  hesi- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  99 

tation  affirm  that  a  sincere  recognition  of  the  truth 
that  our  own  and  all  other  existence  is  a  mystery  ab- 
solutely and  forever  beyond  our  comprehension  con- 
tains more  of  true  religion  than  all  the  dogmatic 
theology  ever  written?" 

But  affirming  things  without  hesitation  is  precisely 
the  essence  of  dogmatism;  and  we  may  mildly  raise 
the  question  whether  the  agnostic  Spencer  was  not 
the  very  prince  of  dogmatizers.  May  we  perhaps 
reverse  his  statement?  May  we  not  say  that  posi- 
tively to  affirm  the  absolute  unknowableness  of  our 
own  existence  is  to  say  what  contains  more  dogmatic 
theology  than  all  the  dogmatic  theology  ever  written? 
Religion  is  childlike,  sometimes  credulous.  But  for 
credulous  innocence  it  can  not  compete  with  Spencer. 
He  wrote  against  the  credulity  of  religion,  and 
abandoned  his  case  with  the  first  chapter  heading. 

In  a  memorable  passage  Aristotle  analyzes  the 
word  "cause,"  and  points  out  that  there  is  a  system 
of  causes.  There  are  the  material  cause,  the  formal 
cause,  the  efficient  or  changing  cause,  and  the  final 
cause.  The  first  is  the  stuff  out  of  which  something 
is  made.  The  second  is  the  form  by  which  it  is 
made.  The  third  is  the  efficient  method  by  which 
form  is  applied  to  matter,  and  one  form  is  changed 
into  another.      The  fourth  is  the  cause  for  which; 


lOO  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

it  is  the  end  or  aim,  the  purpose  which  all  the  pre- 
ceding causes  serve. 

At  once  the  words  of  the  Christ  come  to  mind: 
"To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  I 
into  the  world."  Here  end  and  cause  have  the  same 
meaning.  The  purpose  is  the  cause.  The  purpose 
not  merely  crowns  the  work,  it  caused  it.  The  end 
made  the  beginning. 

I  suppose  it  would  be  admitted  by  even  a  hardened 
naturalist  that  men  have  sometimes  been  reformed 
through  the  love  of  Christ.  The  hardened  natural- 
ist would  have  his  own  way  of  "explaining"  the  fact, 
and  would  have  a  poor  opinion  of  the  convert's  in- 
tellect. But  the  fact  of  reformation  would  re- 
main. What  drugs  had  failed  to  do  to  accomplish 
the  reformation  of  the  drunkard,  the  love  of 
Christ  has  done.  Will  our  psychology  enable 
us  to  inspect  the  method  of  the  change  ?  First,  there 
has  been  actual  formation  of  new  physical  tissue — 
that  is  quite  certain.  Second,  society  has  received 
a  new  species,  a  new  social  creation.  The  man  was 
a  lost  soul,  a  sick  body;  he  has  got  salvation,  and  the 
man  is  literally  a  new  creature. 

If  these  facts  do  not  give  a  clew  as  to  the  method 
of  creation,  then  the  situation  is  hopeless.  But  they 
do  give  a  clew,  and  philosophy  Is  blind  if  she  does 
not  accept  It.      Grant  that  a  first  cause  Is  an  In- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  lOI 

scrutable  mystery  to  the  Intellect.  Then  we  must 
turn  to  final,  to  spiritual  causes.  Can  philosophy 
utterly  neglect  that  tremendous  fact  of  spiritual  his- 
tory— the  fact  that  Christians  see  in  Christ  their 
creator?  Although  Genesis  does  not  say  whether 
creation  was  out  of  stuff  or  out  of  nothing,  the  Chris- 
tian knows  what  creation  by  fiat  Is;  he  was  nothing 
and  less  than  nothing,  but  his  Saviour  has  made  him 
something. 

"Oh,  then,"  says  the  critic,  "salvation  is  entirely 
the  work  of  God.  Then  man  Is  after  all  a  mere 
machine.  He  has  no  freedom."  It  Is  an  ancient 
problem,  and  the  contention  of  absolute  predestina- 
tion was  that  to  which  Jonathan  Edwards  devoted 
a  stern  life.  But  science  goes  on  even  though  Zeno 
of  Elea  demonstrated  motion  to  be  impossible,  and 
religion  lives  in  spite  of  literal  logic.  Have  we  not 
seen  a  sufficient  reason  for  treasuring  Gen.  11?  Je- 
hovah breathed  into  man  his  own  life,  and  man  be- 
came In  some  sense  a  creator  also.  A  man  can  not 
make  himself,  but  in  the  words  of  Leviticus  he  can 
make  himself  abominable.  If  there  is  one  spiritual 
fact  clearer  than  another  in  the  Bible,  It  is  that  man 
is  only  too  free  to  act.  Adam  exercised  that  free- 
dom, with  what  results  we  know. 

The  causation,  then,  which  we  know  in  the  spirit- 
ual world  is  such  causation  as  comes  by  the  influence 


I02  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  human  spirit.  There  is 
a  mystery  here,  but  so  there  is  in  the  most  elementary 
psychology  of  social  relations.  When  George  Eliot 
says  that  spirit  is  drawn  to  spirit  as  flame  to  flame, 
we  do  not  quarrel  with  the  metaphor,  but  thank  God 
for  the  creative  influence  of  those  who  have  made  us 
nobler.  When  Newman  says  that  "voices  melt  us," 
he  is  not  asserting  a  proposition  in  physics,  but  a 
blessed  spiritual  reality.  When  the  prophets 
thunder  to  us,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord!"  it  is  still  with 
love  that  they  speak.  Through  the  thunder  comes 
the  voice  of  our  Lord.  As  the  Magdalene  knew 
him  not  until  he  spoke,  but  trembled  into  new  life 
when  he  spoke  her  sweet  and  homely  name,  "Mary," 
so  every  redeemed  soul  knows  the  persuasiveness 
of  the  divine  word.  How  could  the  world  be  created 
out  of  nothing  by  the  voice  of  God?  We  answer, 
How  can  the  spoken  wish  of  a  mother  make  a  new 
man  out  of  a  prodigal?  Stronger  than  the  energy 
of  light,  which  silently  creates  the  flower  from  the 
seed,  is  the  creative  influence  of  God's  wish  for  us. 

Aristotle  thought  that  the  Good  created  the  ani- 
mals, even  though  "good"  and  "animals"  are  en- 
tirely disparate  conceptions.  Science  has  been 
puzzled  to  know  how  the  animal  could  become  the 
inan.  Is  there  no  hint  in  our  spiritual  experience? 
Are  there  not  the  tiger  and  the  ape  within  us  all? 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  IO3 

And  is  not  the  love  of  God  drawing  us  slowly  away 
from  the  animal  nature?  To  become  a  man,  in  the 
ideal  sense  of  the  word,  is  the  whole  of  our  upward 
effort.  To  become  like  the  Man  of  Nazareth  is 
to  be  spiritually  made.  To  this  end  the  whole  crea- 
tion groaneth  and  travaileth  even  until  now. 

"But  all  this,"  says  our  stubborn  critic,  "is  the 
merest  poetry.  What  we  want  is  cold  demonstra- 
tion." Well,  there  is  too  much  cold  demonstration 
of  spiritual  matters,  but  let  that  pass.  Idealistic 
philosophy  attempts  such  demonstration.  It  mar- 
shals the  laws  of  epistemology,  and  attempts  to  show 
that  what  we  call  matter  is  a  spiritual  construct; 
that  even  what  we  call  "the  brain"  is  such.  It  mar- 
shals the  severest  mathematics  to  the  defense  of 
this  position,  and  the  reader  who  objects  to  poetry 
will  find  very  little  of  it  in  Royce's  Supplementary 
Essay  to  his  "The  World  and  the  Individual."  Let 
the  scorner  of  "poetry"  seek  there  for  system.  Pos- 
sibly he  will  discover  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
"poetry"  hidden  behind  the  severest  system;  that 
mathematics  can  demonstrate  nothing  which  spirit- 
ual insight  has  not  perceived. 

Royce's  idealism  might  almost  be  described  as  a 
systematic  defence  of  the  words  of  Cleanthes  quot- 
ed by  Paul :  "In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."        If    this     seems     to     the     young     theo- 


104  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

logian  pantheistic,  let  him  supplement  Royce 
with  Howison.  Professor  Howison's  "Limits 
of  Evolution"  contains  an  eloquent  defense 
of  final  causes,  a  bitter  attack  on  every  other 
form  of  creationism,  and  the  final  thesis  that  reality 
is  a  society  of  eternally  free  spirits,  among  whom 
God  reigns  solely  by  light  and  not  by  power.  This 
conception  may  raise  another  line  of  difficulties,  and 
may  even  suggest  that  mythical  race  of  creators  who 
once  lived  on  this  continent.  But  Professor  Howi- 
son's discussion  is  penetrating  and  suggestive,  and  a 
study  of  it  may  introduce  the  reader  into  the  entire 
maze  of  modern  speculation — provided  he  is  not 
already  acquainted  with  that  maze. 

As  for  ourselves,  however,  we  shall  not  follow  the 
philosophical  problem  farther.  It  is  enough  to 
perceive  the  spiritual  clew  which  must  be  followed. 
It  Is  enough  if  we  can  grasp,  in  action  as  in  thought, 
the  ideal  of  God's  creative  power  as  revealed  in 
Christ. 

A  satisfactory  philosophy  can  never  be  formu- 
lated until  the  general  level  of  thought  is 
higher,  and  the  reality  of  spiritual  activity  is  better 
understood,  through  experience.  At  present,  spir- 
itual activity  must  seem  like  a  desperate  struggle 
with  nature  and  the  flesh.  Aristotle's  ideal  was  of 
motionless  energy,  the  perfection  of  activity  accom- 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  IO5 

panied  by  perfection  of  ease.  That  will  always 
seem  a  vague  abstraction  until  men  know  what 
Christ  meant  when  he  said,  "My  yoke  is  easy." 
Men  will  scorn  the  idea  of  God's  resting  while  he 
works,  but  they  must  learn  from  him  who  said, 
"My  Father  worketh  and  I  work.  .  .  .  Come  unto  me 
and  I  will  give  you  rest."  In  spite  of  the  fact  that 
physics  no  longer  recognizes  matter  as  substance, 
but  only  as  energy — so  that  every  solid  is  produced 
by,  is  filled  with,  etherial  motion — men  will  have  to 
think  of  matter  as  stubborn  until  they  know  what 
it  is  for  flesh  to  be  transformed  through  the  spirit. 
Evil  is  a  stubborn  fact,  and  its  origin  can  not  be  ex- 
plained to  the  intellect;  but  evil  can  be  rooted  out  or 
transformed  into  good  through  regeneration  of  soul 
and  desperate  practical  effort;  the  "final"  cause  can 
destroy  the  evil  which  no  "first"  cause  can  explain. 
As  Miinsterberg  has  said:  "To  believe  in  God  the 
creator  is  so  to  conceive  the  world  that  an  ulterior 
power  removes  the  opposition  between  the  natural 
and  the  ethical  order.  No  scientific  explanation 
can  make  this  unity  comprehensible;  only  he  who 
has  religious  conviction  is  personally  certain  of  this 
unity  through  God." 

§12.   The  root  of  authority. — Up  to  this  time  we 
have  not  used  the  word  "authority."      For  Chris- 


I06  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tians,  Christ  is  the  root  of  authority;  the  fruits  of 
the  spirit  explain  the  root  of  authority. 

The  antithesis  between  rehgions  of  authority  and 
the  religion  of  the  spirit  has  been  made  familiar 
by  Sabatier's  book  on  the  subject.  Yet  the 
antithesis  is  not  to  be  taken  as  absolute.  A  religion 
is  a  religion  of  authority  in  the  precise  degree  that 
it  is  a  religion  of  the  spirit.  The  proposition  is  ob- 
vious enough,  yet  it  will  not  go  unchallenged.  A 
definition  of  "the  spirit"  will  be  insisted  on. 

We  have  seen  the  difficulties  of  defining  this  word, 
and  must  rest  content  under  the  charge  of  harbor- 
ing an  "ineffable  philosophy."  But  the  charge  is 
not  grievous.  All  postulates  of  thought  are  in  some 
sense  ineffable.  All  definitions  of  spirit  are  inade- 
quate, because  the  whole  creation  is  moving  toward 
a  definition  of  it,  and  the  definition  comes  through 
the  experience  of  struggle,  of  forgiveness,  and  of 
new  activity.  If  our  Lord  was  content  to  define 
the  kingdom  as  a  pearl,  as  a  drag-net,  as  cash  in  the 
bank,  as  a  lost  coin,  as  a  marriage  feast — shall  we  be 
too  hasty  to  confine  the  word  "spirit"  in  a  formula? 

But  our  critics  insist  on  preventing  evasion.  They 
flatly  inquire,  "Do  you  mean,  by  spirit,  reason? 
Do  you  set  reason  against  authority?"  If  we 
answer  yes,  they  will  declare  that  our  faith  in 
scripture  must  fall.      If  we  answer  no,  they  will 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  IO7 

ask  what  becomes  of  our  spiritual  philosophy.  Such 
is  the  dilemma — based,  like  most  dilemmas,  on  the 
ambiguity  of  words. 

We  answer,  Yes.  We  say  that  reason  is  the  root 
of  religious  authority.  If  we  agree  to  be  governed 
by  the  ten  words,  it  is  for  a  reason.  But  for  what 
reason?  Is  it  for  that  "reasoning,"  that  free  play 
of  spectacular  thought — and  fancy — which  Plato 
called  the  logos,  the  word,  the  reason?  Far  from 
it.  We  have  seen  too  much  of  the  effects  of  that 
sort  of  reason.  It  was  the  parent  of  mythology,  of 
naturalism  and  of  agnosticism.  If  we  accept  the 
ten  words,  it  Is  for  that  reason  which  John  identified 
with  love.  That  is  the  voice  of  Christ  in  the 
heart,  and  is  the  creative  authority  lying  back  of 
all  spiritual  institutions.  The  love  which  is  the 
end  of  the  law  is  the  love  which  led  the  law  Into 
existence.  The  divine  last  word  toward  which 
creation  struggles  Is  the  creative  word  spoken  from 
the  beginning.  The  ten  words  of  Mt.  Sinai  have 
the  same  authority  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

But  our  critic,  fearing  whither  such  an  answer 
may  lead,  exclaims  impatiently:  "This  Is  a  pure  mys- 
ticism, and  a  perverse  mysticism  at  that.  It  is  Im- 
possible to  reason  with  a  person  who  takes  refuge 
in  such  a  position.  It  brings  confusion  to  systematic 
thinking,    and    ruins    dogma."       No.       The    true 


I08  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

prolegomena  to  any  systematic  theology  must  show 
a  firm  grasp  of  the  limits  of  dogmatic  thought. 
Intellectual  confusion  is  the  result,  not  of  mysticism 
in  theology,  but  of  literalism.  There  is  a  stern  re- 
buke in  store  for  the  thinker  or  the  nation  who  severs 
authority  from  reason,  law  from  grace,  command- 
ment from  spiritual  suggestion,  reason  from  love. 
To  the  individual,  God  sends  that  rebuke  in  the 
form  of  intellectual  despair.  To  nations  he  sends 
it  in  the  form  of  blood  and  tears.  When  a  nation 
takes  up  the  sword  of  absolute  external  authority  or 
of  absolute  internal  liberty,  it  perishes  by  the  sword. 

§13.  The  Sahhathism  of  the  Psalms. — The  Chris- 
tian Church  has  always  had  to  turn  to  the  Hebrew 
Psalms  for  songs  that  are  profoundly  spiritual.  The 
Psalms  are,  for  us,  of  unequal  value,  but  the  best  of 
them  remain  the  high-water  mark  of  lyrical  power. 
They  are  the  songs  of  sorrow  and  of  joy,  of  work 
and  rest,  of  struggle  and  peace,  of  sin  and  salvation. 
They  were  very  dear  to  the  heart  of  our  Lord,  and 
they  had  entered  into  his  whole  habit  of  speech; 
when  the  darkness  of  death  overcame  him,  almost 
his  last  words  were  from  the  Psalms. 

Here  is  the  law  of  love,  and  here  is  love  of  the 
law.  This  book  shows  how  deeply  the  ten  words 
had  rooted  themselves  in  the  Hebrew  heart,  and  had 
cast  out  all  fear  of  the  law.      Ruskin  tells  us  how  as 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  IO9 

a  child  he  hated  the  psalm  of  the  law — Psalm  cxix 
— but  how  as  a  man  he  came  to  value  It  above  all 
others.  Such  had  been  the  history  of  Israel.  Such 
is  the  history  of  every  earnest  soul  which  is  seeking 
for  a  spiritual  solution  of  the  problem  of  authority. 
Hatred  of  restraint,  desire  for  one's  own  will,  a 
longing  after  forbidden  knowledge — these  are  the 
sources  of  the  problem  of  authority. 

These  songs  were  designed  for  use  on  the  Sabbath 
of  Jehovah,  and  on  it  they  were  sung,  hallowing  the 
day  and  being  hallowed  by  it.  They  brought  the 
eternal  into  time  and  made  the  passing  hour  repre- 
sentative of  heaven.  They  made  the  Sabbath  "a 
dehght." 

Israel  had  forsaken  Idols.  He  had  learned  so 
to  use  time  as  to  feel  the  presence  of  God  In  It.  The 
Sabbath  Itself  could  not  be  worshiped,  for  It  was  a 
passing  Image  of  eternity.  It  was  nothing  In  Itself. 
Try  to  arrest  It  In  thought,  and  It  led  you  straight 
to  an  eternal  divine  "now."  If  you  personify  it  (as 
the  mujik  In  Russia  thinks  Sunday  a  person).  It  will 
say  merely  this:  "I  am  nothing — look  to  the  Eter- 
nal; every  picture  that  you  can  frame  of  God  Is 
temporal,  and  must  pass.  But  the  creator  Is  even 
now  In  time,  consecrating  time.  He  rested  after 
creation,  he  rests  In  heaven,  he  Is  resting  now — rest 
In  his  strength.      Tomorrow  the  labor  of  time  be- 


no  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

gins  anew — learn  now  how  to  consecrate  it.  In 
the  busy  struggle  of  the  week  the  law  will  not  help 
you  save  as  it  has  passed  into  your  very  soul  by  sab- 
batic study  of  it.  Meditate  upon  the  law,  that  it 
may  guide  your  steps  unseen.  Jehovah  is  thy  sal- 
vation, his  plan  will  triumph.  His  creation  shall  be 
finished  and  Messiah  shall  come.  God's  will  shall 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Strife  and 
reproach  shall  have  a  sabbath  [such  is  the  word 
which  we  translate  'desist'].  And  there  remaineth 
a  Sabbath-rest  for  the  people  of  God." 

The  temple  is  overthrown,  and  the  burnt-offering 
is  no  more.  The  ruins  of  ancient  Judaism  are  a  dis- 
tant haze  on  the  horizon  of  history.  But  Judaism 
lives  on.  The  spiritual  element  in  it  has  defied  time, 
and  the  Sabbath  is  still  a  delight  to  the  faithful.  It 
has  proved  to  the  heart  of  the  faithful  that  it  is  hal- 
lowed but  is  no  idol;  for  it  is  self-sacrificial;  it  sacri- 
fices itself  at  every  minute,  and  refuses  to  be  wor- 
shiped.     It  is  no  idol;  it  is  divine  opportunity. 

In  the  Jewish  prayer-book  today  certain  psalms 
are  suggested  for  the  Sabbath.  In  this  group, 
Psalms  xcv-xcix,  one  may  count  thirty  names  for 
God.  They  are  many,  because  the  Eternal  can  not 
be  confined  in  any  one  human  word,  or  in  any  num- 
ber. And  many  of  them  are  sweet  and  homely. 
God  is  our  shepherd  as  well  as  our  king.     He  is  our 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  III 

maker,  our  saviour,  our  light,  the  answerer  of  our 
prayers,  the  forgiver  of  sins,  the  giver  of  strength 
and  peace.  These  are  simple  words,  but  they  are 
weighty.  These  are  not  abstractions.  There 
is  here  no  speculation,  no  astrology,  no  magic. 
The  Sabbath  has  taught  its  lesson — that  God  is  a 
spirit,  and  that  there  is  no  fathoming  his  nature 
by  the  intellect  and  no  controlling  of  it  by  magic. 
Yet  spirit  can  touch  spirit,  and  to  great  issues.  This 
is  Immanuel,  God  with  us.  This  is  the  secret  of 
rest. 

§14.  The  Pharisees. — In  the  course  of  time, 
Greece  became  the  overlord  of  Judea,  and  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  endeavored  to  crush  the  religion  of  Je- 
hovah. He  was  defeated  by  the  Maccabean  up- 
rising. But  there  was  an  "Israel  after  the  flesh" 
which  favored  Greece.  There  was  a  Hellenizing 
party  which  bowed  to  Antiochus,  the  madman  who 
called  himself  a  revealed  god.  Many  of  Israel  con- 
sented to  his  worship,  and  sacrificed  to  idols,  and 
profaned  the  Sabbath  ( i  Mac.  i,  43 ) .  In  opposition 
to  the  Hellenizers  arose  the  Hasidean  party,  who 
were  so  devoted  to  the  law  that  they  would  not  de- 
fend themselves  on  the  Sabbath  from  the  Greek 
invaders.  In  the  course  of  time  the  Hellenizers  and 
the  Hasideans  became  the  Sadducees  and  the  Phari- 
sees.     At  first  these  were  political  parties. 


112  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

The  Pharisees  did  not  intend  this,  except  nega- 
tively. Their  doctrine  was  that  Israel  must  not 
meddle  with  politics  or  aspire  to  political  power,  but 
must  remain  a  nation  apart.  The  nation  was  now 
a  church,  and  Jehovah  would  protect  it.  Israel 
should  acknowledge  no  king  but  God.  If  Israel  was 
conquered,  let  the  curse  be  upon  the  conquerors. 
The  Messiah  would  come  and  put  all  nations  under 
his  feet.  Let  Israel  keep  the  law  and  wait  patiently 
for  the  Lord.  When,  however,  the  Maccabeans 
came  to  act  no  longer  like  priests  but  like  princes,  the 
Pharisees  were  drawn  into  internal  politics.  They 
nobly  resisted  the  brutal  Alexander  Jannasus  (105- 
78  B.  C.)  and  eight  hundred  of  them  met  martyr- 
dom.    Their  love  of  the  law  was  sealed  with  blood. 

Under  Rome  neither  Pharisee  nor  Sadducee  had 
any  political  power,  and  the  distinction  became  a 
religious  distinction.  The  Sadducees  admitted  the 
authority  of  the  law,  but  they  denied  that  it  needed 
rabbinical  supplements.  Also  they  denied  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul.  They  were  naturally  men  of 
affairs,  and  they  became  the  secular  or  positivistic 
party  in  Judaism.  The  Pharisees  insisted  that  the  law 
needed  explanation,  and  that  the  scribal  comments 
should  be  in  some  sense  binding  on  the  faithful. 
Also  they  insisted  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  the  Messianic  kingdom.      In  general,  the  peo- 

(8) 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  II 3 

pie  followed  the  Pharisees,  In  whom  they  perceived 
a  deeper  faith  than  that  of  the  Sadducees. 

But  now  the  Pharisee,  driven  from  all  practical 
life,  began  to  be  a  fanatic.  His  original  gifts  were 
gifts  of  the  spirit — the  truth  that  the  King  of  kings  is 
invisible,  and  the  truth  that  the  future  is  In  the  hands 
of  God.  His  original  aim  was  to  hasten  the  coming 
of  a  spiritual  kingdom  upon  earth.  But  essentially 
he  had  forgotten  this  aim.  And,  as  a  re- 
cent writer  remarks,  "Fanaticism  consists  in  redoub- 
ling your  energy  when  you  have  forgotten  your 
aim."  The  Pharisee  came  to  worship  the  letter. 
He  worshiped  not  merely  the  letter  of  the  law,  but 
that  of  the  rabbis. 

In  the  case  of  the  Sabbath  his  zeal  was  peculiarly 
misdirected.  The  Pharisee  loved  the  Sabbath,  and 
his  fathers  had  died  for  it.  But  he  did  not  see  that 
in  multiplying  sabbatic  restrictions  he  was  making  a 
fetish  of  it,  and  returning  to  the  primitive  standards 
of  taboo.  He  wished  to  be  blameless  before  God, 
and  his  method  was  literalism.  But  literalism  is  the 
confusion  of  physical  and  spiritual  fact,  and  Is  the 
very  essence  of  Idolatry.  In  his  ignorance  he  could 
not  see  this,  but  he  continued  to  act  with  vigor. 
"There  Is  nothing  more  terrible,"  said  Doctor  John- 
son, "than  ignorance  in  action." 

In  the  rabbinical  comments  on  the  law,  a  hundred 


114  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

and  fifty  double  folio  pages  are  devoted  to  the  Sab- 
bath. We  shall  not  here  reproduce  these  pages, 
though  the  enormous  bulk  of  them  must  not  be  for- 
gotten.    A  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  taboo  ! 

On  the  Sabbath  the  Jew  must  do  no  work !  But 
how  shall  we  know  what  work  is?  The  rabbis  tell 
us.  There  are  thirty-nine  kinds  of  work,  and  each 
of  these  may  be  endlessly  divided.  Sowing,  plow- 
ing, reaping,  binding  sheaves,  threshing,  winnowing, 
sifting,  grinding,  riddlmg,  kneading,  baking,  shear- 
ing wool,  whitening,  carding,  dyeing,  spinning,  warp- 
ing, making  two  spools,  weaving  two  threads,  hoist- 
ing, loosing,  sewing  two  stitches,  tearing  thread  for 
two  sewings,  hunting  the  gazelle,  slaughtering,  skin- 
ning, salting,  curing  its  skin,  tanning,  cutting  up, 
writing  two  letters,  erasing  to  write  two  letters, 
building,  demolishing,  quenching,  kindling,  hammer- 
ing, carrying  from  private  to  public  property.  Lo, 
these  are  the  principal  works — forty  less  one. 

Such  are  the  thirty-nine  articles  of  Pharisaic  taboo. 
A  word  or  two  must  be  said  about  the  Innumerable 
subdivisions  of  things  prohibited  and  permitted.  A 
man  who  stood  outside  a  house  and  handed  some- 
thing in  was  a  Sabbath-breaker,  but  he  who  received 
it  within  was  blameless.  But  if  a  man  reached  his 
hand  into  the  house,  and  the  householder  placed  a 
gift  therein,  the  man  might  withdraw  his  hand  and 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  II5 

be  blameless.  A  tailor  might  not  carry  his  needle 
on  the  Sabbath,  nor  a  scribe  his  pen.  Rabbi  Sham- 
mai  said  that  wool  set  for  dyeing  on  sixth-day  must 
not  be  allowed  to  absorb  dye-stuff  on  the  Sabbath; 
but  Rabbi  Hillel  disagreed  with  him  on  this  point 
and  others  like  it.  We  must  confess  to  a  certain 
admiration  for  Shammai;  if  a  man  must  absolutely 
and  utterly  desist  from  "work,"  why  should  he  not 
insist  on  the  correct  behavior  of  the  wool  he  had  put 
in  the  dye-tub?  Logic  is  a  terrible  idol,  but  if  we 
are  to  throw  ourselves  before  this  Juggernaut,  why 
offer  merely  a  foot  to  be  crushed?  It  is  hardly  re- 
markable that  King  Jannaeus  warned  his  wife  against 
the  "dyed  Pharisees"  (Tzevoim) . 

The  anxiety  of  a  strict  Pharisaic  household  to 
observe  the  Sabbath  must  have  been  pathetic.  An 
egg  must  not  be  placed  near  a  boiler,  lest  accidentally 
it  be  cooked;  it  must  not  be  left  on  hot  sand,  lest  the 
same  disaster  follow.  A  hundred  similar  household 
duties  left  little  time  for  mothers  in  Israel  to  rest, 
and  to  meditate  on  the  joyous  Psalms  of  David. 
Dressing  for  church  was  a  very  serious  matter  to 
the  Pharisee.  A  man  might  wear  garters  on  the 
Sabbath,  but  no  anklets.  He  must  not  wear  nailed 
soles — for  to  carry  nails  is  to  carry  burdens !  Bur- 
dens !  as  if  this  dead  body  of  taboo  were  not  almost 


Il6  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

as  heavy  as  that  sinful  "body  of  this  death,"  con- 
cerning which  Paul  speaks  with  a  groan. 

§15.  The  Christ. — Our  Lord  felt  the  pathos  of 
the  Pharisaic  religion.  "Oh,  Jerusalem,  thou  that 
killest  the  prophets  and  stonest  them,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thee  as  a  hen  gathers  her 
chickens  under  her  wing,  and  thou  wouldst  not," 

But  pity  did  not  dull  the  edge  of  his  courage.  In 
him  was  that  "moral  substitute  for  war"  of  which 
we  have  several  times  spoken.  Repeatedly  he  broke 
the  Pharisaic  Sabbath.  An  outcry  arose.  What  au- 
thority had  he?  What  rabbi  had  permitted  this? 
He  spoke  as  one  having  authority,  and  furthermore 
he  appealed  to  their  reason.  This  Pharisaic  Sab- 
bath observance  was  new;  the  Hebraic  Sabbath,  he 
said,  was  not  always  thus.  It  was  lawful  to  do 
good  on  the  Sabbath.  The  priests  in  the  temple 
"labored"  on  the  Sabbath  and  were  blameless.  His 
disciples  had  plucked,  rubbed,  and  eaten  grain  on  the 
Sabbath  as  they  walked  through  the  fields.  They 
had  violated  the  rabbinical  interpretation  of  reap- 
ing and  grinding.  But  David  ate  the  sacred  bread 
itself. 

He  healed  men  on  the  Sabbath.  The  rabbis  had 
permitted  such  healing  "when  life  was  in  danger," 
but  being  puzzled  to  know  just  when  life  is  in  dan- 
ger, they  preferred  to  risk  an  occasional  death  rather 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  II 7 

than  risk  the  Sabbath.  He  who  suffers  pain  in  the 
loins  may  anoint  himself  with  oil,  but  not  with  vine- 
gar! He  who  has  inflamed  eyes  may  not  apply 
saliva,  though  saliva  is  curative.  Then  came  our 
Lord  and  made  clay — thus  breaking  a  sacred  pre- 
scription— and  anointed  the  eyes  of  the  blind.  He 
told  the  palsied  man  to  rise  and — carry  a  burden! 
The  sick  flocked  to  him.  When  they  did  not  dare 
come  on  the  Sabbath,  they  came  after  sundown. 

He  had  his  own  definition  of  "work"  as  applied 
to  the  Sabbath,  and  preferred  it  to  the  thirty-nine 
articles  of  Phariseeism.  "My  father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  I  work."  He  approved  the  kind  of 
"work"  that  men  do  when  they  go  to  church  and 
worship  in  spirit;  and  the  Sabbath  found  him 
in  the  synagogue.  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for 
man,"  he  said,  "and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  It 
was  as  if  he  explicitly  advised  the  keeping  of  the 
command  in  Ex.  xxiii,  12,  where  the  motive  is  love 
for  men.  We  have  no  record  of  any  direct  comment 
upon  the  "rest"  of  God,  but  we  have  his  own  in- 
vitation: "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  are  weary 
and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  The 
palsied  man,  looking  back  to  his  own  Sabbath  with 
the  Lord,  could  know  what  that  meant.  For  the 
first  time  in  years,  the  Sabbath  had  brought  him  rest. 


Il8  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Trembling  hands  and  trembling  soul  had  alike  felt 
the  peace  of  the  Eternal. 

Such  was  the  Sabbathism  of  our  Lord.  But  he 
had  no  thought  that  his  Sabbathism  was  opposed 
to  Judaism.  He  expressly  declared  that  it  was  not. 
Pharisaic  taboo  "was  not  from  the  beginning." 

Once,  In  discussing  the  Sabbath  with  the  scribes, 
he  had  referred  to  David's  eating  the  sacred  bread. 
As  his  own  martyrdom  drew  near,  his  mind  seemed 
to  revert  to  this  act.  And  now  he  permitted  him- 
self one  solemn  request,  one  personal  favor.  At 
the  last  supper  he  said,  "This  is  my  body — eat  ye 
ail  of  it;  do  this  in  remembrance  of  me." 

And  so  he  left  them,  hoping  that  they  had  learned 
how  to  keep  the  ten  words  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 
His  new  command  of  love  was  only  that  of  Deuter- 
onomy. His  face  was  toward  the  future;  he  had 
left  the  dead  to  bury  the  dead,  but  he  had  not  buried 
the  quick  with  the  dead.  The  law  was  to  be  ful- 
filled in  love  and  in  reasonableness.  The  week  was 
passing,  and  his  temporal  work  was  nearly  done. 
A  last  struggle,  a  last  sacrifice,  and  he  paid  his  debt 
to  time.  He  passed — not  with  some  new  strange 
word  upon  his  lips,  but  with  a  word  from  the  Psalms. 

He  passed  almost  as  obscurely  as  he  had  come. 
At  his  birth  he  had  shared  the  lot  of  the  wayfarer; 
at  his  death,  that  of  the  criminal.      He  had  tasted 


BIBLICAL  SABBATHISM  II9 

the  full  pathos  of  time — Its  mocking  fleetness,  Its 
uncertainty,  Its  power  to  destroy  memory  and  divide 
friends,  Its  whole  train  of  change  and  decay.  But 
he  had  done  more.  In  this  supreme  historical  figure 
of  all  generations,  the  Eternal  had  visibly  entered 
into  time,  offering  to  his  brethren  the  paradox  of 
eternal  life  here  and  now.  He  had  shown  how — 
through  repentance,  forgiveness,  regeneration,  con- 
secration, spiritual  effort  and  struggle — time  could 
be  lifted  Into  eternity.  To  even  the  best  Greek  and 
Hindu  thought,  the  Individual  had  been  little  more 
than  a  transient  bubble  on  the  stream  of  nature's 
endless  process.  But  the  Redeemer  changed  the 
status  of  the  individual.  In  return  for  truly  sin- 
cere repentance,  faith,  and  spiritual  effort — he  gave 
the  humblest  man,  woman,  or  child  a  dignity  above 
that  of  kings;  the  power  of  spiritual  conquest;  the 
assurance  of  value,  responsibility,  and  Immortal 
peace. 

When  we  speak  of  the  condition  of  the  dead,  we 
must  speak  without  pretense  of  either  scientific  or 
magical  knowledge,  and  without  a  blind  adherence  to 
any  one  spiritual  figure  of  speech.  We  know  that 
Lazarus  "slept."  We  know  that  our  Lord  said  to 
the  thief,  "This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  In  para- 
dise." We  know  that  he  said,  "He  that  belleveth 
on  me  hath  eternal  life."      Such  contradictory  words 


I20  SPIRITUAL  SABBATISM 

are  not  literal  but  symbolic.  To  the  materialist, 
they  symbolize  the  utter  destruction  of  conscious- 
ness, but  to  the  Christian  they  must  symbolize  the 
conservation  of  the  spirit.  Speaking  in  figurative 
language,  may  we  not  say  that  Our  Elder  Brother 
went  home?  Speaking  figuratively,  and  with  full 
awareness  of  the  fact,  may  we  not  say  that  he  rested 
in  his  Father's  house,  whence,  in  the  hush  of  the 
Sabbath,  he  returned  to  assure  his  disciples  that 
the  sabbatic  rest  which  we  call  death  is  but  the  per- 
fection of  life? 

The  doctrine  that  Christ  arose  on  Sunday  can 
not  be  maintained,  as  may  be  seen  in  our  notes,  with- 
out direct  contradiction  of  one  of  the  narratives. 
It  is  entirely  within  the  bounds  of  a  sound  scholar- 
ship to  maintain  that  the  resurrection  took  place  on 
the  Sabbath. 

But  even  here  the  spirit  of  literalism  must  not  blind 
us.  Let  us  not  gnosticize  or  pretend  to  know  the 
secrets  of  the  risen  Christ.  It  is  the  Christ  of  time, 
of  life  on  earth,  the  Christ  who  lived  the 
eternal  life  among  men,  whose  example  should 
mold  our  conduct  in  time.  There  is  no 
phase  of  the  resurrection  truth  which  was  not 
already  implicit  in  the  Sabbath.  Resurrection  is 
but  the  release  from  the  flesh  into  the  fullness  of  the 
Sabbath-rest  which  begins  on  earth.      It  marks  the 


BIBLICAL   SABBATHISM  121 

fleeting  moment  In  which  sabbatic  activity  becomes 
the  sabbathism,  or  "sabbatismos",  of  which  the 
author  of  Hebrews  speaks.  It  is  the  perfect  and 
joyful  activity  which  brings  new  creation  of  spirit 
week  by  week  and  will  not  cease  to  be  creation 
throughout  eternity. 

In  speaking  of  the  resurrection,  we  may,  if  we 
choose,  speak  of  the  change  of  the  dead  body  to  the 
glorified  body.  In  so  speaking  we  but  follow  the 
method  of  Paul.  But  Paul's  method  is  far  less 
gross  than  it  has  sometimes  been  thought  to  be. 
More  and  more  the  thought  of  resurrection  must 
become  ideal.  We  can  not  accept  a  "material" 
resurrection  of  the  flesh.  In  an  age  when  science 
daily  employs  the  conception  of  the  luminiferous 
ether,  that  ideal  entity  which,  though  of  perfect 
"solidity,"  transcends  "substance,"  it  is  impossible 
but  that  our  conception  of  the  resurrection  should 
be  etherlalized  till  it  becomes  a  true,  spiritual  con- 
ception. With  the  increasing  idealization  of  the 
resurrection,  men  will  place  less  and  less  emphasis 
on  the  question  as  to  the  exact  "time"  of  that  eternal 
reality,  and  more  and  more  emphasis  on  the  spir- 
itual adjustment  between  labor  and  rest. 


Chapter  III. 
NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY. 

§i6.  The  resurrection  of  the  sun. — Jehovah  tri- 
umphed over  the  Baalim  in  Palestine,  and  made  that 
corner  of  the  earth  our  Holy  Land.  Our  Lord  re- 
vealed the  Father  who  makes  his  sun  to  shine  upon 
the  evil  and  the  good.  The  religion  of  the  spirit, 
homely  and  human  but  lofty  and  pure,  had  tri- 
umphed over  the  licentious  religions  of  nature.  The 
first  missionaries  of  the  Gospel,  reared  in  that  puri- 
fied corner  of  the  earth,  could  little  appreciate  that, 
far  and  wide  around  the  globe,  scores  of  Baalim  still 
confronted  Jehovah.  Baal  means  Lord.  Their 
Lord  the  Sun  was  to  struggle  with  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

But  the  first  step  of  the  missionaries  into 
the  Gentile  world  revealed  the  fact.  "The 
common  people  heard  them  gladly,"  but  the 
common  people  were  mostly  believers  in  the  res- 
urrection of  the  sun,  and  worshiped  the  earth- 
mother.       Some    Baal    and    some    Astarte    were 

122 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 23 

everywhere.  For  centuries  it  was  doubtless  the 
first  task  of  missionaries  to  warn  the  common 
people  against  confounding  the  dying  and  the  risen 
Christ  with  the  dying  and  the  risen  sun;  against 
identifying  Jesus  with  Tammuz,  or  Attis,  or  El- 
gabal,  or  Osiris,  or  Anubis,  or  Apollo,  or  Adonis, 
or  Mithra,  or  i^sculapius,  or  Balder,  or  the  Celtic 
Baal.  And  it  was  equally  their  task  to  warn  against 
giving  to  Mary,  the  Mother  of  Jesus,  the  charac- 
teristics of  Aphrodite,  or  Anahita,  or  Dea  Syria,  or 
the  Great  Mother,  or  Cybele,  or  Isis,  or  Freya. 
Sometimes  they  succeeded  in  their  warnings;  often 
they  failed. 

In  distant  regions,  like  Pontus,  a  certain  "Gospel" 
probably  spread  more  by  force  of  paganism  than  by 
force  of  missionary  effort.  Pontus  was,  in  some  ma- 
terialistic sense,  almost  "Christianized"  by  112,  and 
without  much  missionary  effort.  And  Pontus  was  the 
seat  of  Anahita,  mother  of  fertility,  where  the  Sa- 
caean  drama  of  the  sun's  resurrection  was  played, 
a  mock  king  of  the  revels  was  put  to  death,  and  all 
the  abominations  of  sex-worship  flourished. 

"We  have  seen,"  says  Frazer,  "that  the  concep- 
tion of  the  dying  and  risen  God  was  no  new  one 
in  these  regions  [Bithynia  and  Pontus].  From  time 
immemorial  the  mournful  death  and  happy  resur- 
rection of  a  divine  being  appear  to  have  been  an- 


124  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

nually  celebrated  with  alternate  rites  of  bitter  lam- 
entation and  exultant  joy;  and  through  the  veil 
which  mystic  fancy  has  woven  round  this  tragic  figure 
we  can  still  detect  the  features  of  those  great  yearly 
changes  in  earth  and  sky  which,  under  all  distinc- 
tions of  race  and  religion,  must  always  touch  the 
natural  human  heart  with  alternate  emotions  of  glad- 
ness and  regret,  because  they  exhibit  on  the  vastest 
scale  open  to  our  observation  the  mysterious  strug- 
gle between  life  and  death.  But  man  has  not  al- 
ways been  willing  to  watch  passively  this  momentous 
conflict;  ...  he  has  taken  sides  against  the  forces 
of  death  and  decay.  .  .  .  Nowhere  do  these  efforts, 
vain  and  pitiful  and  pathetic,  appear  to  have  been 
made  more  persistently  and  systematically  than  in 
Western  Asia.  ...  A  man,  whom  the  fond  imagina- 
tion of  his  worshipers  invested  with  the  attributes 
of  a  God,  gave  his  life  for  the  life  of  the  world; 
after  infusing  from  his  own  body  a  fresh  current 
of  vital  energy  into  the  stagnant  veins  of  nature,  he 
was  cut  off  from  the  living  before  his  failing  strength 
should  initiate  a  universal  decay,  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  another  who  played,  like  his  predecessors, 
the  ever-recurring  drama  of  the  divine  resurrection 
and  death.  .  .  .  The  blow  struck  in  Golgotha  set  a 
thousand  expectant  strings  vibrating  wherever  men 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 25 

had  heard  the  old,  old  story  of  the  dying  and  risen 
god." 

The  enormous  mass  of  facts  marshaled  by 
Frazer  and  other  anthropologists  to  support  the 
foregoing  statement  may  be  read  in  the  sec- 
ond or  third  edition  of  "The  Golden  Bough." 
They  produce  in  Doctor  Frazer  an  ill-con- 
cealed belief  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
is  itself  a  myth.  "In  the  great  army  of  mar- 
tyrs," he  continues,  "who  in  many  ages  and  in  many 
lands,  not  in  Asia  only,  have  died  a  cruel  death  in 
the  character  of  gods,  the  devout  Christian  will 
doubtless  discern  types  and  forerunners  of  the  com- 
ing Saviour — stars  that  heralded  in  the  morning  sky 
the  advent  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness — earthen 
vessels  wherein  it  pleased  the  divine  wisdom  to  set 
before  hungering  souls  the  bread  of  heaven.  The 
sceptic,  on  the  other  hand,  with  equal  confidence, 
will  reduce  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  the  level  of  a  mul- 
titude of  other  victims  of  a  barbarous  superstition, 
and  will  see  in  him  no  more  than  a  moral  teacher, 
whom  the  fortunate  accident  of  his  execution  in- 
vested with  the  crown,  not  merely  of  a  martyr,  but 
of  a  god.  The  divergence  between  these  views  is 
wide  and  deep." 

It  is  indeed.  As  for  ourselves,  we  have  already 
indicated,     in     our     first     chapter,     how     sincerely 


126  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

and  devoutly  we  accept  the  Christian's  belief 
that  the  bread  of  heaven  was  set  before  hunger- 
ing souls  in  earthen  vessels.  But  in  behalf 
of  the  Christ  whose  Bible  was  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  who  gave  us  the  religion  of  the  spirit 
and  not  the  religion  of  Baal,  we  are  forced  to  admit 
the  enormous  probability  that  his  resurrection  was 
received  in  solar  terms  by  thousands  of  the  first  con- 
verts. We  know  almost  positively  that  Mariolatry 
is  due  to  solar  worship.  We  know  almost  positively 
that  the  church  fixed  December  25  as  Christ's  birth- 
day because  the  common  people  Insisted  on  keeping 
the  Birthday  of  the  Sun — namely  the  days  immedi- 
ately following  the  winter  solstice,  when  the  sun 
begins  to  grow  brighter.  We  know  positively  that 
Easter  is  of  solar  origin.  And  there  are  strong 
reasons  for  believing  that  Sunday  itself  came  into 
Christianity  as  a  compromise  with  solar-worship. 

Space  forbids  us  to  speak  of  the  death  and  resur- 
rection of  Tammuz,  of  Adonis,  of  Attis,  of  Osiris. 
The  prophet  Ezekiel  is  sufficient  authority  for  the 
power  of  the  first-named  to  corrupt  Israel.  The 
others  may  be  studied  In  Frazer's  book,  "Adonis, 
Attis,  and  Osiris."  But  we  may  add  here  a  word 
concerning  Apollo,  iEsculapius,  and  two  Antichrists. 

Apollo  was  a  reformer — he  conquered  the  giant 
sun-god  Hyperion,  type  of  primitive  solar  worship. 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 27 

His  religion  in  Greece  attained  a  high  degree  of 
nobility.  He  was  the  god  of  the  light  of  reason, 
and  to  him  music,  sculpture,  and  medicine  were 
sacred.  To  his  temple  and  that  of  his  son,  the  phy- 
sician Asklepios,  thousands  flocked  for  healing  with- 
out drugs;  and  indeed  faith  and  sunlight  without 
drugs  are  a  better  remedy  than  drugs  without  faith 
or  sunlight.  In  the  second  century  at  Rome 
the  cult  of  iEsculapius  had  great  power.  Salvation 
from  disease  became  the  great  cry  of  religion.  "No 
one,"  says  Harnack,  "could  any  longer  be  a  God 
who  was  not  also  a  Saviour,"  (The  Greek  word  for 
"saviour"  is  the  same  as  that  for  "healer".)  The 
struggle  between  ^sculapius  the  physician  and  Jesus 
the  physician  became  intense.  The  discussion  be- 
tween Celsus  and  the  Christians  shows  this.  Wit- 
nesses of  cures  could  be  summoned  by  both  sides. 
Though  Origen  asserted  that  i^sculapius  was  a 
figment  of  the  imagination,  Celsus  had  asserted  that 
"many  Greeks  and  barbarians"  had  personally  seen 
him  going  about  and  making  cures.  Now  ^Escula- 
pius  was  a  sun-god. 

Apollo's  namesake,  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  attained 
in  Asia  and  in  Rome  a  tremendous  reputation  for 
healing,  and  after  his  death  a  temple  was  erected  to 
him.  He  had  studied  the  cures  wrought  in  the 
temples  of  ^sculaplus.      He  came  to  Rome,  a  dis- 


128  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tinguished  figure,  beautiful  as  a  god,  and  was  taken 
for  a  god.  There  is  a  tradition  of  his  having  raised 
to  life  a  Roman  girl  who  was  "seemingly  dead." 
Here  was  a  second  solar  physician  disputing  the 
claims  of  Christ. 

Still  another  was  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos,  a 
Paphlagonian.  He  began  his  career  of  magic  in 
company  with  a  physician  trained  by  Apollonius. 
With  him  he  carried  a  tame  serpent — the  serpent  is 
always  associated  with  Apollo,  i^sculapius,  and  all 
oriental  sun-gods,  being  both  the  sign  of  the  sun's 
tortuous  course  through  the  ecliptic,  and  a  sign  of  the 
generative  power  of  sunlight.  Even  before  he 
reached  Abonoteichos  a  temple  was  prepared  for 
him.  He  established  an  oracle,  and  this  be- 
came so  famous  that  he  drew  an  annual  revenue 
of  $35,000.  From  the  mysteries  which  he  estab- 
lished he  excluded  all  Christians.  He  maintained 
his  imposture  throughout  life,  and  coins  of  lonopolis 
(the  new  name  he  gave  the  city)  bear  the  device  of 
the  serpent  with  a  human  head.  Such  were  the 
Asian  Antichrists,  all  of  them  sun-magicians,  who 
"deceived  many." 

The  crowning  shame  of  Rome  was  her  admission 
of  a  priest  of  the  Sun  to  the  position  of  Emperor. 
Elgabal  of  Syria,  a  phallic  sun-god,  contributed  Ela- 
gabalus  the  Emperor,  and  in  217  all  gods  were  pro- 

(9) 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 29 

claimed  servants  of  the  Sun.  The  unnaturally  and 
hideously  immoral  life  of  Elagabalus  was  brought 
to  a  violent  close  by  the  soldiers  of  the  imperial 
guard. 

§17.  The  Sunday  of  Mithra. — Long  before 
Christ  was  born,  the  weekly  Sunday  was  celebrated 
by  thousands  of  pagans,  and  it  was  celebrated  by 
their  children,  converted  or  unconverted,  throughout 
the  first  four  centuries  of  Christendom.  This  state- 
ment is  not  one  of  those  rash  generalizations  which 
have  so  often  been  made  by  the  enemies  of  Chris- 
tianity, who  write  reckless  books  about  the  "sixteen 
crucified  saviours,"  etc.  It  rests  on  the  recent  thor- 
ough and  accurate  investigations  of  Franz  Cumont, 
the  distinguished  Belgian  scholar,  whose  monu* 
mental  labors  have  now  been  critically  inspected  by 
the  world's  archaeologists  for  twelve  years.  The 
statement  with  which  this  section  begins  will  hardly 
be  disputed  by  any  eminent  critic  of  Cumont. 

Asia  Minor  was  the  chief  seat  of  that  ancient 
Persian  religion,  Mithraism,  in  the  two  centuries 
just  before  Christ.  Mithra-Anahita,  sun-god  and 
fertility-goddess,  were  worshiped  in  those  regions 
where  Christianity  spread  most  rapidly  In  the  first 
century.  "Here  paganism  was  absorbed,"  says 
Harnack;  "there  were  no  fierce  struggles.  Pagan- 
ism simply  disappeared  to  emerge  again  In  the  Chris- 


130  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tian  Church."  While  Syria  was  holding  out  against 
the  new  religion,  and  Christians  were  forced  to  build 
outside  the  Syrian  city  of  the  Sun,  Emesa,  Christian- 
ity of  a  certain  sort  spread  in  Pontus  like  the  ex- 
plosion of  gunpowder.  And  why  not?  Peter  and 
Paul  and  Silas  had  not  been  able  to  penetrate  into 
those  regions,  to  warn  the  people  against  mistaking 
the  Sun  of  Righteousness  for  the  sun  of  victory  and 
fertility.  Even  in  those  regions  to  which  mission- 
aries penetrated,  "Should  we  be  astonished,"  says 
Cumont,  "if  the  multitudes  of  devotees  failed  always 
to  observe  the  subtle  distinctions  of  the  doctors, 
and  rendered  to  the  radiant  star  of  day  the  homage 
which  orthodoxy  reserved  for  God?  In  the  fifth 
century,  not  only  heretics  but  even  faithful  follow- 
ers were  still  wont  to  bow  their  heads  towards  its 
dazzling  disc  as  it  rose  above  the  horizon,  and  to 
murmur  the  prayer,  'Have  mercy  upon  us.'  "  If 
that  was  true  in  the  fifth  century  in  Rome,  what 
must  have  been  true  of  the  first  century  in  Pontus? 

There  were  two  types  of  Mithraism,  one  more 
faithful  to  its  ancient  Persian  origin,  one  more  cor- 
rupted by  sex-worship.  We  do  not  know  which 
type  was  introduced  to  Rome  by  the  captured 
Ciliclan  pirates  whom  Pompey  brought  with 
him  seventy  years  before  Christ.  But  it  was 
the  Persian  type  which  captured  Roman  soldiers  sta- 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  131 

tioned  In  the  East,  and  which  flashed  throughout 
the  Empire  In  the  first  century,  from  the  Black  Sea 
to  Scotland,  and  left  its  memorials  In  Geneva  (later 
the  city  of  Calvin)  and  in  London  (later  the  city  of 
Henry  VIII).  This  Persian  type  was  the  religion 
of  military  unrest;  the  Baal  type  was  the  religion 
of  a  worse  unrest.  Sunday  was  common  to  both 
types.  It  was  Mithraism  that  gave  to  Rome  the 
astronomical  week,  which  Mithraism  had  derived 
from  the  Babylonian  astrologers,  and  which  dis- 
placed the  ancient  Roman  system  of  kalends,  nones, 
and  Ides,  not  merely  in  the  city,  but  in  those  north- 
ern military  provinces  from  which  we  derive  our 
own  Teutonic  ancestry. 

There  were  two  reasons  why  Mithraism  conquered 
Rome,  being  established  by  Trajan  in  100,  and  by 
the  brutal  Commodus  (an  initiate)  about  190. 
One  was  that  the  worship  of  the  earth-mother,  Cy- 
bele,  had  been  established  in  Rome  two  centuries  be- 
fore Christ,  and  Mithraism  completed  that  cult.  The 
other  was  that  It  flattered  the  Emperors,  and  fooled 
them  to  the  top  of  their  bent.  It  gave  them  to  be- 
lieve that  the  planets  rule  men's  destinies,  that  the 
chief  planet,  the  sun,  rules  the  destiny  of  the  Em- 
peror, and  that  due  veneration  paid  to  the  sun  would 
Insure  good  fortune,  stability,  and  victory  to  Caesar. 
In  Egypt  and  In  Asia  the  Roman  Emperor  was  quite 


132  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

willing  to  be  worshiped  as  the  sun-god,  and  was  so 
worshiped.  The  Latin  mind  was  less  compliant, 
but  the  Caesars  would  set  no  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
a  cult  which  made  for  the  greatness  of  Caesar. 

There  were  two  reasons  why  Mithraism  perished 
in  Rome.  First,  it  came  to  emphasize  the  military 
virtues  exclusively;  it  admitted  no  woman  to  a  share 
in  the  religious  secrets  of  her  husband.  A  woman 
must  go  to  the  temple  of  Cybele,  while  her  husband 
prayed  in  the  underground  chapel  of  the  Uncon- 
quered  God  for  the  virtues  of  courage  and  sternness. 
Secondly,  it  had  no  Incarnate  God.  It  lacked  the 
essential  historical  element.  It  had  no  continuity 
with  the  one  truly  spiritual  religion  of  antiquity. 
It  was  in  time  destroyed  by  its  rival,  Christianity, 
and  its  priests  were  massacred  by  Christian  hands. 
But  for  a  time  its  fate  seemed  to  hang  in  the  bal- 
ance. It  seemed  doubtful  whether  Aurelian  would 
not  actually  make  the  world  Mithraic.  The  deadly 
struggle  between  Mithra  and  Christ  was  inevitable. 
As  Cumont  says:  "The  worship  of  the  Sun  was 
the  logical  upshot  of  Paganism."  As  Renan  says: 
"Before  religion  reached  the  point  where  it  pro- 
claimed that  God  should  be  sought  in  the  Absolute 
and  the  Ideal,  that  is  to  say,  outside  the  world,  only 
one  cult  was  reasonable  and  scientific,  and  that  was 
the  cult  of  the  Sun." 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 33 

The  cults  of  the  two  religions  had  so  much 
in  common  that  the  good  Justin  thought  Mithraism 
a  Satanic  invention,  quite  as  the  Jesuits  thought 
the  Aztec  "eucharist"  such.  Both  had  a  Mediator, 
a  Redeemer,  a  Trinity,  an  Adoration  of  Shepherds, 
a  Baptism,  a  Sacred  Meal  of  Bread  and  Wine,  an 
Ascension,  a  Resurrection  of  the  Body,  a  Last  Judg- 
ment, a  Heaven  and  Hell,  and — a  Sunday.  And 
yet  Mithraism  was  by  many  centuries  the  older 
religion. 

In  Mithraism  the  complicated  and  fantastic  myth- 
ology ran  as  follows :  Zervan,  Infinite  Time,  Is  the 
First  Cause.  From  him,  the  inscrutable,  came  forth 
many  pairs  of  gods,  each  generating  another  pair. 
The  Sun  is  one  of  these,  and  Mithra  is  the  light  of 
the  sun.  From  that  solid  rock,  the  firmament, 
Mithra  emerged  without  father  or  mother,  and 
heavenly  shepherds  came  and  adored  the  beautiful 
youth  with  the  Phrygian  cap.  The  Sun  laid  upon 
him  the  task  of  slaying  the  Bull  of  Darkness  and 
Evil.  This  Mithra  did,  though  the  labor  was  hard 
and  sad.  That  was  the  beginning  of  creation.  The 
brave  and  unconquered  youth  became  the  creator  of 
all  that  Is  good,  for  from  the  body  of  the  Bull  came 
the  wheat  and  the  grape  and  the  race  of  men.  The 
myth  clearly  denotes  the  passage  of  the  sun  In  spring- 
time into  the  constellation  of  the  Bull,  an  event  which 


134  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

brings  new  life  to  plants  and  to  men.  When  his 
labors  are  ended,  Mithra  eats  with  Helios  a  last 
supper  of  bread,  water,  and  wine,  and  ascends  to 
heaven  in  the  chariot  of  Helios.  But  he  does  not 
desert  men.  Daily  his  light  slays  the  darkness. 
Daily  he  helps  the  Emperor.  Daily  he  is  the  Com- 
rade of  the  devout  soldier.  He  is  the  Unconquered. 
When  the  end  of  the  world  draws  near,  Satan 
(Ahriman)  will  send  another  Bull,  Mithra  will  de- 
scend and  slay  it,  the  dead  shall  come  forth,  the 
bodies  of  the  faithful  shall  be  raised,  and  they  shall 
ascend  to  heaven  with  Mithra.  Then  eternal  fire 
shall  devour  evil  men  and  their  master  Ahriman,  and 
there  shall  be  no  more  earth  and  no  more  evil. 

Such  in  its  mixed  outlines  was  the  religion  which 
in  the  third  century  probably  numbered  as  many  fol- 
lowers as  Christianity.  Before  taking  leave  of  it 
we  may  note  one  or  two  phases  of  it  which  helped 
to  produce  Gnosticism. 

Zervan,  Infinite  Time,  has  already  been  mention- 
ed in  §5.  Images  symbolizing  this  all-devouring 
First  Cause  have  been  found  in  many  mithraeums 
in  Europe.  They  represent  a  lion-headed  man  with 
open  mouth  and  visible  teeth.  Around  him  is  coiled 
the  serpent  of  the  sun,  representing  the  tortuous  pas- 
sage of  the  sun  through  the  ecliptic,  and  the  gen- 
erative power  of  the  sun.      Four  wings  show  the 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 35 

rapidity  of  his  flight  through  the  seasons.  On  his 
breast  is  Jove's  thunderbolt.  Beside  him  are  the 
hammer  and  tongs  of  fiery  Vulcan,  and  the  serpent 
wand  of  Mercury,  shepherd  of  dead  souls.  At  his 
feet  are  the  pine-cone  and  the  cock  of  ^Esculapius 
and  Apollo,  or  of  the  Sun  and  Attis.  He  is  the 
inscrutable  and  pitiless  source  and  master  of  all 
gods. 

From  Time,  who  is  the  great  i^on,  or  Eternal, 
emanate  all  the  gods  by  pairs,  each  having  the  power 
of  generating  a  lower  pair. 

The  altar-pieces  always  show  the  beautiful  youth 
Mithra  slaying  the  Bull.  Beside  him  stand  two 
other  figures  of  himself,  one  with  the  sun's  torch 
lifted,  the  other  with  it  inverted.  Christian  art, 
noting  the  beauty  of  the  Pergamon  statues  of  Mith- 
ra (c.  200  B.  C.)  adapted  them  to  the  theme  of 
Samson  slaying  the  lion.  Mithraic  sculptures  which 
represent  Mithra  striking  the  firmamental  rock  with 
his  beams,  to  draw  water  for  a  thirsty  generation, 
become  figures  of  Moses  smiting  the  rock. 

§18.  Mythology  re-enters  as  Gnosticism. — By 
mythology  we  have  all  along  meant  creation-myths, 
since  these  constitute  the  bulk  of  all  myths.  There 
was  a  new  passion  for  mythology  in  the  first  three 
centuries  of  Christianity.  It  was  not  the  primitive, 
naive  myth-making  which  expressed  a  rooted  instinct 


136  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

for  personalism.  It  was  the  myth-making  of  men 
who  had  tasted  metaphysics,  but  who  had  not  the 
ablhty  to  follow  the  close  reasoning  of  an  Aristotle. 
This  artificial  and  metaphysical  mythology  goes  by 
the  name  of  Gnosticism.  It  was  the  religion  of 
intellectual  unrest. 

It  was  recruited  from  various  sources,  especially 
Mlthralsm  and  Neoplatonism.  It  rested  on  the 
propositions  that  man  needs  salvation  from  evil,  and 
that  this  salvation  can  come  only  through  knowledge. 
But  It  did  not  mean  by  knowledge  the  slow,  patient 
study  of  facts  which  made  Aristotle  the  master  of 
those  who  know.  It  meant  metaphysical  knowl- 
edge and  occult  science.  A  knowledge  of 
how  the  world  was  made,  and  how  the  evil 
in  it  happened,  could  give  man  the  secret  path  to 
salvation.  It  could  even  furnish  magic  formulae 
for  charms  and  amulets  and  mighty  spells. 

When  it  came  In  contact  with  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity, it  found  the  Jewish  kabballsts  able  to  offer 
contributions  of  knowledge,  and  In  Christianity  It 
found  a  marvelously  apt  field  for  Its  expansion. 
A  large  portion  of  the  Gnostics  became  Christians, 
being  convinced  that  Jesus  was  the  supreme  master 
of  occult  knowledge.  And  it  Is  now  acknowledged 
by  all  scholars  that  the  Gnostics  laid  the  foundations 
upon  which  the  Fathers  built  a  large  part  of  their 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 37 

biblical  exegesis  and  their  theology.  The  Gnostics 
were,  to  use  Harnack's  phrase,  "the  theologians  of 
the  first  century,"  and  they  were  largely  responsible 
for  what  the  same  writer  calls  "the  acute  seculariz- 
ing of  Christianity." 

All  the  systems  of  Gnosticism  agreed  on  certain 
things.  One  was  that  darkness  and  matter  are  the 
source  of  evil,  and  could  not  have  been  created  by 
a  perfect  God.  This  proposition  in  itself  reduced 
Jehovah  to  an  inferior  position,  for  by  matter  the 
Gnostics  meant  the  visible  world.  Another  was  that 
between  man  and  the  Unknown  First  Cause  (or  else 
the  Perfect  God)  there  must  be  a  series  of  beings 
in  whose  nature  evil  was  attenuated  step  by  step. 
These  beings  were  either  emanations  of  the  supreme 
being,  or  they  were  successive  generations  of  emana- 
tions. 

Mithraism  furnished  the  Inscrutable  First  Cause, 
which  we  have  seen  deified  as  Infinite  Time.  It  fur- 
nished the  successive  generations,  the  "endless  gene- 
alogies." With  Platonism  it  furnished  a  world  of 
light  above  the  world  of  darkness.  Out  of  the 
Abyss  of  Being  came  the  Pleroma,  or  world  of  light, 
and  in  this  Pleroma  dwelt  the  great  spiritual  beings, 
the  JEons.  Each  pair  of  these — for  usually 
they  were  regarded  as  male  and  female — generates 
a  lower  pair,  until  finally  the  imperfect  Demiurge  is 


138  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

generated,  and  he  creates  the  imperfect  world.  Je- 
hovah Is  a  name  often  given  to  the  Demiurge. 

The  notion  of  the  Demiurge  came  both  from 
Mithraism  and  from  Platonlsm.  Plato,  who  was 
not  only  the  supreme  idealist  among  philosophers, 
but  the  supreme  artist,  believed  in  free  play  of 
mind,  even  when  it  ended  in  mere  play.  He  knew 
very  well  that  the  human  intellect  can  not  solve 
the  problem  of  how  the  One  becomes  the  Many,  and 
in  the  Timaus  he  deliberately  amuses  his  auditors 
by  inventing  the  Demiurge  as  creator  of  the  world. 
So  far  from  the  Demiurge's  having  created  Plato 
or  any  other  man,  he  was  the  playful  invention  of 
Plato.  But  the  poor  Gnostics  took  the  great  think- 
er's innocent  myth  for  gospel;  took  his  counterfeit 
tender  for  true  pay.  Literalism  in  metaphysics! 
it  is  always  a  dupe. 

The  first  forms  of  Gnosticism  were  painfully  ma- 
terialistic. Simon  Magus  went  about  posing  as 
"some  great  one,"  and  we  know  from  other  sources 
than  the  Book  of  Acts  what  this  "great  one" 
was.  Simon  pretended  to  be  no  other  than 
the  Demiurge  himself,  the  true  creator  of 
the  earth.  With  him  traveled  the  abandoned 
woman  Helena,  a  fact  which  he  boasted  of 
as  having  superhuman  significance,  and  which 
indeed  does  recall  the  mating  of  Adonis  with  Venus. 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 39 

For  Simon  belongs  with  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos 
as  a  solar-magician,  hailing  from  the  seats  of  Asian 
sex-worship.  In  one  account  this  Helena  is  called 
Luna,  the  moon-goddess.  Simon  allowed  to  Jesus 
a  certain  divinity,  lower  than  his  own. 

Before  the  apostle  John  died,  the  Gnostic  Cerin- 
thus  was  preaching  that  the  divinity  of  Jesus  was 
"docetic,"  mere  seeming.  The  Logos  had  descend- 
ed on  Jesus  at  the  baptism,  and  had  left  him  at  the 
cross.  He  who  died  was  merely  a  man.  The 
Logos  came  by  water,  of  the  baptism,  but  not  by 
blood.  And  to  all  the  Gnostics  there  was  more 
or  less  unreality  in  Jesus;  either  his  divinity  or  his 
humanity  was  unreal;  either  he  was  a  man  on  whom 
an  aeon  had  descended  in  his  childhood  or  his  man- 
hood, or  he  was  a  spirit  whose  footsteps  fell  lightly 
upon  the  earth,  and  whose  hands  received  the  pierc- 
ing nails  without  pain. 

The  greatest  of  the  Gnostics  was  Valentinus,  who 
lived  at  Rome  in  the  day  of  Antoninus  Pius,  and  who 
may  even  have  disputed  with  Justin  Martyr  In  those 
days.  He  was  however  far  more  influential  for 
Christian  thought  than  Justin.  Harnack  says  of 
him:  "Valentinus  was  the  most  Important  Chris- 
tian theologian  before  Orlgen.  Clement  and  Ori- 
gen  were  both  his  pupils."  They  were  a  trifle 
later,  but  they  were  greatly  impressed  by  his  sys- 


I40  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tematic  effort  to  give  Christianity  a  philosophical 
statement. 

In  the  creation-system  of  this  first  "scientific" 
Christologist,  God  is  regarded  as  the  perfect  ground 
of  all  existence,  but  as  absolute  and  inscrutable. 
We  can  know  him  only  through  his  modes,  his  mo- 
tions, his  effects.  The  carnal  man  knows  him  not  at 
all;  the  moral  (or  "psychic")  man  knows  a  little 
of  the  lowest  elements  of  his  goodness;  only  the 
"spiritual"  man,  the  Gnostic,  can  know  the  full  real- 
ity of  that  goodness. 

The  fullness  of  reality,  goodness,  and  light  is 
called  the  Pleroma.  In  this  spiritual  world  we  may 
detect  certain  modes  of  God,  whom  we  will  call 
iEons,  or  eternal  realities.  These  are  spiritual 
archetypes  or  thoughts  of  the  divine  mind.  They  are 
thirty  in  number,  as  are  the  days  of  the  moon.  They 
may  be  grouped  in  pairs,  such  as  Depth  and  Silence, 
Mind  and  Truth,  the  Word  and  the  Life,  the  Ideal 
Man  and  the  Ideal  Church.  These  are  far  above 
all  created  things.  It  was  by  some  disturbance 
among  these  eternal  realities  that  an  imperfect  world 
was  produced.  Valentinus  teaches  that  the  actual 
process  was  as  follows:  Depth  and  Silence  generated 
the  next  lower  aeons.  Mind  and  Truth;  these  the 
next  lower,  the  Word  and  the  Life;  these  the  next 
lower.  Ideal  Man  and  the  Ideal  Church.       After- 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  I4I 

wards  Mind  and  Truth  begot  ten  aeons,  a  perfect 
number,  as  an  offering  to  God.  The  Word  and 
the  Life  begot  twelve  aeons,  an  imperfect  number, 
including  Faith,  Hope,  Love  and  Wisdom.  But 
Wisdom  (Achamoth,  Sophia,  Lower  Wisdom)  as- 
pired to  produce  by  herself,  and  brought  forth  the 
Demiurge.  Thus  pride  of  mind  produced  the 
Creator  of  the  world  of  evil  unreality  which  we 
know. 

The  Demiurge — whom  nearly  all  the  Gnostics  re- 
garded as  identical  with  Jehovah — produced  that 
seeming  which  we  call  matter,  and  that  seeming 
which  we  call  man.  To  Jehovah  is  due  the  mixture  of 
light  and  darkness,  good  and  bad,  in  man.  Dis- 
mayed by  man's  misery.  Wisdom  and  the  other  aeons 
obtained  permission  from  God  to  project  Christ  and 
the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  the  task  of  these  twain  to 
rescue  man  from  darkness  and  evil  by  acquainting 
him  with  the  true  origin  of  it,  and  giving  him  mys- 
teries and  spells  by  which,  after  much  fasting,  he 
may  rise  to  the  vision  of  God. 

Valentinus's  system,  as  he  himself  conceived  it, 
was  little  more  than  a  Platonic  speculation.  But 
his  division  of  ideas  into  pairs  opened  the  road  to 
mythology,  and  his  school  hypostasized  with  a 
vengeance.  It  was  thus  that  the  Egyptians  had  ex- 
plained creation;  they  too  removed  the  responsibility 


142  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

for  evil  as  far  as  possible  from  God  by  endless 
generations  of  subordinate  male  and  female  creators. 
Thus  too  had  Mithraism  placed  generations  between 
Zervan  and  Mithra.  For  primitive  men  there  was 
an  excuse;  but  it  is  strange  that  so  clever  a  thinker  as 
Valentinus  should  not  have  seen  whither  the  system 
led.  Mythology  always  leads  away  from  morality. 
It  places  knowledge  of  origins  above  the  ordinary 
man,  and  renders  the  initiate,  who  thinks  magically, 
superior  to  common  law  and  order.  And  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  many  Gnostics  felt  themselves  so  freed 
from  Jehovah's  "imperfect"  laws  that  they  plunged 
into  carnal  license. 

Only  one  Gnostic  gospel  has  come  down  to  us 
intact.  This  is  the  Faith-Wisdom  (Pistis  Sophia) 
so  named  from  that  one  of  the  seons,  already  spoken 
of,  who  regretted  the  results  of  her  ambitious 
parthenogenesis.  This  gospel — which  escaped  in  a 
Coptic  version — represents  Jesus  as  remaining 
eleven  years  on  earth  after  his  resurrection,  to  in- 
struct his  disciples  in  the  mysteries  of  the  Pleroma. 
It  makes  him  call  upon  Jehovah  with  magic  and 
meaningless  words — for  the  less  meaning  a  word 
has,  the  more  powerful  is  the  spell  it  casts. 

The  Christian  Gnostic  Basilides  is  said  to  have 
invented  the  magic  or  mystic  word  "Abraxas."  It 
is  capable  of  many  permutations,  and  may  be  built 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 43 

into  puzzling  figures.  This  name  we  find  on  most 
of  the  Gnostic  amulets,  charms,  and  gems,  which 
King  has  studied  so  carefully.  And  with  this  "Chris- 
tian" name  we  find  the  serpent  of  the  sun,  or  the 
jackal-head  of  Anubis,  or  the  lotus,  symbol  of  the 
fertility  of  Isis.  On  one  gem  is  Abraxas, 
with  head  of  bird  and  legs  of  serpents,  driving  the 
chariot  of  Apollo.  On  another  we  find  Christ  the 
Good  Shepherd,  carrying  on  his  shoulders  a  sheep 
with  bushy  tail.  But  the  head  of  the  "sheep"  is  sharp- 
pointed  and  springs  from  the  man's  shoulders;  and 
from  beneath  the  shepherd's  tunic  extends  the  jackal- 
tail  of  Anubis.  The  sun-god  Anubis  is  one  of  the 
oldest  of  Egyptian  divinities.  He  is  the  embalmer 
of  the  dead,  and  the  shepherd  of  dead  souls. 

Such  was  Gnostic  syncretism.  It  was  a  restless 
mythology,  not  a  restful  Christianity.  It  interpreted 
the  Bible  as  it  pleased.  "To  the  Gnostics,"  says 
Uhlhorn,  "the  gospels  were  myths."  And  if  this 
was  true  of  the  gospels,  what  was  true  of 
the  Old  Testament,  the  work  of  the  Demi- 
urge? Valentinus,  it  is  true,  was  a  student 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  attempted  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  spiritual,  the  moral,  and 
the  carnal  elements  in  It.  The  program  was  ad- 
mirable, and  so  perhaps  were  some  of  the  results. 
But  Valentinus  had  a  difFerent  standard  of  "spiritual- 


144  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

ity"  from  that  of  Jesus,  the  supreme  biblical  critic, 
and  it  is  entirely  safe  to  say  that  our  Lord  would 
rarely  have  agreed  with  him  in  his  revisions  of 
Moses,  that  mouthpiece  of  the  Demiurge.  As  for 
the  great  mass  of  the  Gnostics,  and  for  the  thousands 
whom  they  influenced,  their  theory  was  deadly  to 
Jehovah's  law.  It  was  the  more  so  because  profess- 
ing to  "reconcile"  all  things. 

§19.  Jehovah  rejected  as  the  Demiurge. — In 
some  sense  the  greater  Gnostics  did  not  "reject"  Je- 
hovah; they  merely  found  a  subordinate  place  for 
him  in  their  system  of  magical  knowledge.  But 
Marclon  hated  Jehovah.  And  "Marcion's  influence 
on  the  Christian  world,"  says  Hatch,  "is  far  larger 
than  is  commonly  supposed."  The  Marcionite 
churches  were  numerous,  and  between  150  and  250 
they  were,  says  Harnack,  "really  dangerous  to  the 
great  church." 

Marclon  found  in  the  gospels  a  God  of  love  and 
justice.  In  the  Old  Testament  he  found,  as  he 
thought,  a  God  of  hatred  and  injustice.  He  de- 
clared that  Paul  alone  had  seen  this;  that  Paul  had 
seen  the  gulf  between  law  and  grace,  but  that  even 
Paul  had  failed  to  see  what  the  gulf  logically  Implied 
— not  an  Absolute  giving  birth  to  "endless  genealo- 
gies" between  heaven  and  earth — but  two  distinct 
Gods.  Why  be  patient  with  Jehovah  any  longer? 
(10) 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 45 

There  were,  then,  a  God  of  Imperfection  and 
Law,  and  a  God  of  Perfection  and  Love.  The  good 
God  had  sent  his  son  to  earth.  Clothed  not  in  flesh 
but  in  the  spiritual  likeness  of  the  flesh,  the  Son  had 
revealed  to  men  the  God  of  Perfection  and  Love. 
But  Jehovah,  the  Demiurge,  the  creator  of  evil — 
had  he  not  said,  in  Isaiah,  "I  create  evil" — ? — had 
failed  to  recognize  the  Son  of  the  true  God,  and  had 
caused  him  to  be  nailed  to  the  cross.  The  son  came 
to  destroy  the  law  of  Jehovah,  and  Jehovah  slew 
him. 

Hence  Christians  must  renounce  Jehovah,  and 
every  phase  of  his  law.  They  must  renounce  the 
special  sign  of  Jehovah,  the  Sabbath.  They  must 
even  renounce  marriage,  for  this  too  was  the  work 
of  Jehovah,  creator  of  the  flesh. 

Such  was  Marcionism,  a  religion  of  impatience 
and  destruction. 

§20.  Justin,  TertiiUian,  the  Didache. — It  Is  im- 
possible to  dogmatize  concerning  the  complicated 
mixture  of  motives  and  processes  which,  in  the  first 
century,  brought  Sunday  into  repute.  Biblical  rea- 
sons were  not  among  them,  for  (as  is  now  admitted 
by  eminent  critics  and  as  our  notes  will  show)  the 
New  Testament  nowhere  asserts  that  Sunday  was  a 
day  of  public  worship  or  that  It  was  the  day  of  the 
resurrection.      Jewish  Christians  continued  to  ob- 


146  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

serve  the  Sabbath.  In  the  Book  of  Acts  there  Is  a 
clear  record  for  several  years  of  Sabbath  observance 
by  the  apostolic  missionaries.  But  it  is  equally  sure 
that  a  variety  of  motives  impelled  many  Christians 
toward  the  Sunday  observance  which  was  undoubt- 
edly common  by  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 
There  was  the  instinct  for  a  weekly  Sab- 
bath. There  was  the  tremendous  influence 
of  the  Mithraic  Sunday  in  Asia  Minor,  which 
unquestionably  is  to  be  assigned  to  that  ab- 
sorption of  paganism  spoken  of  in  §18.  There  was 
hatred  for  everything  Jewish.  There  was  more 
or  less  early  belief  that  Sunday  was  the  resurrection 
day,  though  we  can  neither  say  how  much  there 
was,  nor  what  were  Its  sources.  "The  greatest  gap 
In  our  knowledge,"  says  Harnack,  "consists  In  the 
fact  that  we  know  so  little  about  the  course  of  things 
from  about  the  year  61  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign 
of  Trajan."  We  can  only  speculate  as  to  why  the 
records  of  that  forty  years  are  so  scanty.  But  It  Is  no 
wild  speculation  to  surmise  that  the  Church  sedu- 
lously destroyed  a  great  deal  of  compromising  lit- 
erature. The  many  Gnostic  gospels,  for  Instance, 
were  burned  as  unscrupulously  as  they  had  been  In- 
vented. The  PIstIs  Sophia  escaped.  In  Its  Coptic 
dress.  Only  the  other  day  the  so-called  Gospel  of 
Peter  (second  century)  was  recovered  from  a  grave, 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 47 

and  reveals  the  Gnostlcal  change  of  Christ's  dying 
words  to,  "My  power,  my  power,  why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me?" 

There  is  no  unquestioned  reference  to  Sunday  as 
a  day  of  Christian  worship  until  about  150,  when 
we  have  certain  words  of  Justin  the  Philosopher. 
"Sunday,"  he  says,  "is  the  day  on  which  we 
hold  our  common  assembly,  because  it  is  the  first 
day  on  which  God,  having  wrought  a  change  in 
the  darkness  and  matter,  made  the  world;  and  Jesus 
Christ  our  Saviour  on  the  same  day  arose  from  the 
dead."  There  Is  here  no  reference  to  the  observ- 
ance of  Sunday  as  a  day  of  rest,  and  other  records 
go  to  show  that  it  was  not  so  observed  till  much 
later. 

Domvllle  remarks  that  Justin's  first  reason  sounds 
like  an  afterthought.  Assuredly  It  does.  The 
good  Justin  Is  first  trying  to  explain  an  Institution 
of  whose  complex  history  he  knew  very  little — es- 
pecially of  Its  history  in  Asia  Minor. 

But  Justin  was  a  philosopher;  his  very  clothes 
showed  It;  he  preached  In  the  old  philo- 
sophic gown  which  he  wore  In  the  days  of  his 
paganism.  This  restless  Inquirer  had  In  turn  been 
a  Stoic,  a  Pythagorean,  and  a  Platonlst,  and  had 
finally  adopted  Christianity  as  "the  only  true  and 
useful  philosophy."     And  the  task  now  set  for  him 


148  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

was  to  recommend  Christianity  to  the  mercy  of  the 
Stoic  Emperor,  Antoninus  Pius;  for  it  is  in  Justin's 
First  Apology  that  the  reference  to  Sunday  occurs. 
There  was  need  of  such  an  appeal;  for,  though  An- 
toninus was  as  good  a  ruler  as  Rome  ever  had,  his 
goodness  had  a  dangerous  edge  to  it.  His  still 
greater  successor,  Marcus  Aurelius,  sent  to  the  block 
not  only  Justin  himself,  but  many  another  Chris- 
tian. 

Justin's  apology  is  a  manly  document,  and  as 
ingenious  an  appeal  as  so  superficial  a  thinker  could 
produce.  He  wrote  as  one  philosopher  to  another, 
as  a  converted  Stoic  to  an  unconverted  Stoic.  He 
says  that  good  Stoics  were  really  Christians,  even 
though  charged  with  atheism;  for  the  Stoics  be- 
lieved in  the  Reason  (logos)  which  informs  nature 
and  directs  the  good  man;  and  since  Jesus  is  that 
Reason  incarnate,  those  who  lived  according  to 
Reason  before  him  were  really  his  followers.  But 
Justin  was  well  aware  that  the  Stoics,  being  essen- 
tially materialists,  had  ceased  to  be  interested  in 
creation;  they  recognized  God  in  the  world,  in  so 
far  as  there  is  Reason  in  things.  Justin,  however, 
had  graduated  from  Stoicism  to  Platonism,  which 
insists  on  the  importance  of  creation,  sets  God 
outside  the  world,  and  lays  tremendous  stress  on 
God's  having  made  a  change  "in  the  darkness  and 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 49 

matter."  Plato,  he  Insists,  had  unconsciously  copied 
Moses  In  this.  Moses  was  the  original  Platonlst, 
so  to  speak.  But  Justin  has  nothing  to  say  of  the 
Mosaic  conception  of  the  Sabbath.  He  lets  that 
severely  alone,  and  offers  for  his  Sunday-keeping  the 
Importance  of  the  first  day  of  creation.  So,  after 
all,  Justin  props  up  Sunday  with  Plato,  Nothing 
would  more  have  astonished  that  eminent  thinker 
than  to  be  set  above  Moses  for  the  purpose  of  per- 
suading a  Stoic  to  protect  Christians  In  violating  a 
Mosaic  ordinance. 

It  was  a  pallid  argument,  and  yet  It  is 
significant  that  Justin  advances  It  first.  It  would 
really  have  been  more  effective  to  resist  the  rhetori- 
cian's desire  to  convert  a  stern  materialist  to  the 
unsubstantial  pageant  of  Plato's  dream.  To  have 
resisted  that  desire  would  have  left  him  free  to 
pursue  an  argument  which,  elsewhere  In  his  apology, 
he  had  almost  entered  upon.  He  had  referred  kind- 
ly to  Heraclltus,  from  whom  the  Stoics  derived  so 
much,  and  had  allowed  him  a  share  In  Christ.  Now 
Heraclltus  believed  that  the  world  began  and  will 
end  in  fire.  Here  was  a  real  chance  that  Justin 
might  have  seized.  He  might  have  maintained  that 
not  only  do  Christians  believe  in  a  final  conflagra- 
tion, but  that  they  are  essentially  Stoics,  because  they 
identify  Jesus,  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  with  that 


150  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

divine  fiery  spark  of  reason  which  is  in  all  men,  and 
has  for  its  symbol  the  sun.  This,  with  a  proper 
apology  for  scorning  the  Jews — Justin  was  born  in 
Samaria — might  have  penetrated  into  the  philo- 
sophical attention  of  the  Emperor.  It  would  have 
been  no  less  fanciful  than  Justin's  Platonism,  and 
it  would  have  been  far  more  acceptable  at  court. 
We  can  not  think  that  Justin  would  have  shrunk 
from  such  an  argument.  He  was  not  a  person  to 
stick  at  trifles.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  refer  to  the 
true  philosopher  in  genuine  Stoic  language,  as  "lord," 
as   "messenger,"    as   "bishop"    (eVto-KOTros) ,    even   as 

a  god   (Oeo';)  ! 

As  to  the  Sabbath,  we  elsewhere  find  Justin  the 
Philosopher  making  precisely  such  comments  on  it 
as  we  should  expect.  In  his  Dialogue  with  Trypho, 
the  Jew,  he  says :  "The  new  law  requires  you  to 
keep  perpetual  sabbath.  If  there  is  a  perjurer  or 
a  thief  among  you,  let  him  cease  to  be  so;  if  any 
adulterer,  let  him  repent;  then  he  has  kept  the  sweet 
and  pure  sabbath  of  God."  This  sounds  like  pan- 
sabbathism,  but  it  is  quite  clearly  no-sabbathism. 
However  important  it  may  be  for  adulterers  to  re- 
pent, repentance  from  adultery  is  not  observing  a 
sabbatic  rest.  Justin's  advice  is  pure  allegory,  pre- 
cisely as  it  is  pure  allegory  when  he  declares  that 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  151 

the  crucifixion  fulfills  the  prophecy  that  "the  gov- 
ernment shall  be  upon  his  shoulder." 

Justin's  no-sabbathism,  then,  like  Gnosticism  and 
Marcionism,  is  an  expression  of  impatience  with  the 
past.  It  is  the  natural  conclusion  of  the  restless 
inquiry  which  had  marked  Justin  from  the  day  when 
he  began  to  change  his  philosophies.  He  belongs 
to  the  type  of  thinkers  who  live  on  novelties,  and 
must  receive  a  new  revelation,  logical  or  illogical, 
every  few  years. 

Half  a  century  later  we  find  Tertullian,  that 
powerful  Carthaginian  rhetorician,  "whose  multi- 
farious knowledge,"  says  Neander,  "lay  confusedly 
heaped  up  in  his  mind,"  laying  down  the  no-sabbath 
law  with  his  accustomed  vigor.  "Christians  ought 
to  observe  a  sabbath  from  servile  work  always." 
Tertullian  himself  was  anything  but  an  idler,  yet  th'.s 
doctrine  comes  perilously  near  that  spirit  of  aloof- 
ness from  business  which  Paul  had  castigated.  Paul 
maintained  that  if  a  Christian  would  not  work,  he 
should  not  be  allowed  to  eat.  He  said  this  know- 
ing perfectly  the  temptation  to  idle  away  the  hours 
till  the  parousia.  If  a  Christian  went  into  business 
or  took  public  office  he  was  expected  to  make  oaths 
In  the  name  of  pagan  gods;  for  a  time  it  puzzled 
Christians  to  make  a  living. 

As    for    the    Sunday,    Tertullian    found    himself 


152  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

obliged  to  defend  Christians  from  the  charge  of  be- 
ing sun-worshipers.  "Others  .  .  .  suppose  that  the 
sun  Is  the  god  of  the  Christians,  because  it  Is  a  well 
known  fact  that  we  pray  toward  the  East,  or  because 
we  make  Sunday  a  festival.  .  .  .  Granted  that  we  give 
the  day  of  the  sun  to  rejoicing,  we  do  so  for  a  far 
different  reason  than  for  the  religion  of  the  sun." 
The  good  bishop  unquestionably  spoke  with  sincerity 
for  himself  and  for  thousands.  But  he  could  not 
speak  for  the  Gnostic  Christians,  or  for  thousands  of 
earlier  and  less  enlightened  converts. 

But  our  critics  will  call  us  away  from  these  famous 
allegorlzers  of  the  second  century.  They  will  re- 
mind us  of  the  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles — 
which  contains  a  reference  to  the  Lord's  Day.  The 
DIdache  was  discovered  In  1887  by  Bryennlos.  He 
at  once  expressed  the  belief  that  the  first  six  chap- 
ters record  a  very  early  Palestinian  tradition,  and 
that  the  rest  are  later.  The  judgment  of  Bryen- 
nlos has  substantially  been  accepted.  But  as  to  the 
actual  date  of  the  complete  document,  judgment  has 
differed  widely.  Paul  Sabatier  puts  it  as  early  as 
the  middle  of  the  first  century.  Bigg  as  late  as  the 
fourth  century. 

In  the  original  document  of  the  Two  Ways — 
"the  way  of  life  and  the  way  of  death" — which 
occupies  the  first  six  chapters,  the  great  command- 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  1 53 

ment  of  love  is  emphasized  at  length.  It  sums  up 
the  ten  words.  Of  these  words,  several  are  referred 
to.  The  fourth  is  not  mentioned,  nor  is  the  fifth. 
Any  argument  that  may  be  based  on  silence  con- 
cerning the  Sabbath-law  will  hold  good  of  the  silence 
concerning  the  honoring  of  parents. 

In  the  fourteenth  chapter  there  is  this  brief  direc- 
tion: "But  on  the  Lord's  day  do  ye  assemble  and 
break  bread  and  give  thanks,  after  confessing  your 
transgressions,  in  order  that  your  sacrifice  may  be 
pure."  As  to  the  exact  date  of  this  direction,  we 
do  not  here  speculate.  It  is  probably  later  than 
Justin,  perhaps  much  later.  But  a  careful  study  of 
the  "transformations"  to  which  the  Didache  was 
subjected  in  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  centuries 
certainly  suggests  anything  but  an  apostolic  origin 
for  this  direction.  In  Hastings  (Extra  Volume, 
447-449)  these  corruptions  and  additions  may  be 
studied.  But  the  itch  for  authority  is  very  strong 
in  us  all,  and  if  this  passing  reference  in  the  four- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Didache  appeals  to  any  of 
our  readers,  we  will  venture  to  oppose  to  it  a  say- 
ing which  was  attributed  to  Jesus  himself  at  a  date 
almost  certainly  earlier.  In  the  Oxyrhyncus  say- 
ings, or  logoi,  the  second  reads  thus:  "Jesus  said, 
except  ye  fast  to  the  world,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  find 


154  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

the  kingdom  of  God;  and  except  ye  make  the  Sab- 
bath a  real  Sabbath,  ye  shall  not  see  the  Father." 

§2  1.  Sunday  legislation  begins. — With  the  fourth 
century  began  an  alliance  of  the  Sunday  with  the 
civil  power,  an  alliance  which  has  continued  for 
fifteen  hundred  years  in  one  form  or  another, 

Constantine  the  Great  (274-337)  shrewdly  seized 
upon  Christianity  as  the  most  vigorous  element  in 
the  decaying  empire.  "He  was  no  doubt  a  mono- 
theist  even  as  early  as  312,"  says  Uhlhorn,  "but  the 
one  God  whom  he  worshiped  was  rather  the  sun- 
god,  the  'Unconquered  Sun,'  than  the  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  In  313  he  issued  an  edict 
which  was  extremely  favorable  to  the  Christians, 
and  in  a  partial  sense  Christianity  became  the  State 
religion.  Milman  says  that  there  can  be  little 
doubt  "that  in  the  capitol  sacrifices  were  offered  in 
the  name  of  the  senate  and  the  people  of  Rome  till 
a  much  later  period."  Constantine's  Christianity, 
what  there  was  of  it,  began  with  a  superstition. 
He  reasoned,  says  Eusebius,  that  his  father  had 
prospered  under  Christianity,  and  that  the  pagan 
emperors  had  not.  "With  his  every  victory  over 
his  rivals,"  says  Schaff,  "his  confidence  in  the  magic 
power  of  the  sign  of  the  cross  increased;  yet  he  did 
not  formally  renounce  heathenism,  and  did  not  re- 
ceive baptism  until,  in  337,  he  was  laid  on  his  bed 


NO-SABBATHISM  AND  THE  SUNDAY  I  55 

of  death.  .  .  .  With  the  remark,  'Now  let  us  cast 
away  all  duplicity,'  he  honestly  admitted  the  conflict 
of  two  antagonistic  principles  which  swayed  his  pri- 
vate character  and  public  life." 

It  was  this  famous  compromiser,  whose  life  is 
stained  with  gross  crimes  and  gross  duplicity, 
who  introduced  Sunday  legislation.  There  was  no 
reference  to  Christian  motives  in  the  edict,  which 
was  issued  March  7,  321.  All  judges,  all  city  peo- 
ple, and  all  tradesmen  are  to  rest  on  "the  venerable 
day  of  the  sun."  Farmers  are  exempted.  Such 
was  the  first  Sunday  decree,  and  its  expressed  motive 
was  frankly  pagan.  Throughout  the  Empire  that 
phrase,  "the  venerable  day  of  the  sun,"  would  be 
welcomed  by  all  the  followers  of  Elgabal,  Mithra, 
Apollo,  and  ^Esculapius.  The  following  day, 
March  8,  321,  a  second  edict  commanded  that  In 
case  of  a  public  building's  being  struck  by  lightning, 
the  ceremonies  for  propitiating  the  gods  should  be 
performed,  and  the  secret  meaning  of  the  calamity 
sought  from  the  haruspices.  The  two  commands 
are  on  an  astrological  par.  The  sun,  the  Emperor's 
star,  is  to  be  propitiated  by  a  festival,  and  the  light- 
ning is  to  be  understood  by  observing  the  move- 
ment of  a  slain  beast's  entrails.  The  holiday  and  the 
magic  go  together. 

It     was     not     for     nothing     that     Constantlne 


156  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Stamped  his  coins,  as  may  still  be  seen,  with 
the  name  of  Christ  and  the  image  of  Apol- 
lo. Much  has  been  made  of  his  belief  in  the 
magic  of  the  cross.  But  his  peculiarly  shaped 
cross  was  the  Egyptian  labarum,  a  phallic  emblem 
of  the  sun,  used  in  magic  long  before  the  cross 
was  planted  on  Golgotha.  And  in  works  on 
magic  from  that  day  to  this,  the  labarum  is  referred 
to  as  "Constantine's  cross."  As  for  the  quality 
and  quantity  of  the  Sunday  "rest"  which  he  en- 
joined, we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  it  was  Con- 
stantine  who  directed  the  markets  to  be  held  on 
Sunday.  For  a  thousand  years  that  direction  was 
observed  throughout  Europe.  He  was  a  strangely 
divided  man,  this  Constantine.  He  would  have 
been  more  logical  if,  like  Alexander  Severus,  he 
had  placed  together  in  his  chapel  the  busts  of  Christ, 
Apollonius  of  Tyana,  and  the  Emperors. 

Christians  received  the  Sunday  law  with  what 
mixture  of  feelings  we  do  not  know.  But  to  the 
more  devout,  the  new  civil  rest  day  must  have  been  a 
day  of  unrest.  Christ  had  solemnly  denied  that 
his  kingdom  was  of  this  world. 


Chapter  IV. 
SABBATARIANISM. 

§22.  Roman  Catholic. — I  use  the  term  Sabba- 
tarianism to  describe  Christian  efforts  to  give  Juda- 
istic  severity  to  any  so-called  holy  day.  In  Catholi- 
cism such  efforts  were  indirectly  due  to  the  multi- 
plication of  festivals  and  fasts;  it  was  found  that 
familiarity  bred  contempt,  and  so  legislation  was 
constantly  resorted  to  to  compel  sabbatic  quality.  In 
fact,  as  we  shall  see,  forged  scripture  was  finally 
resorted  to. 

The  growth  of  the  Christian  cult  was  rapid.  If 
we  compare  the  simple  worship  described  by  Justin, 
in  his  First  Apology,  with  the  liturgy  of  two  cen- 
turies later,  as  it  appears  in  the  eighth  book  of  the 
Apostolic  Constitutions,  we  see  that  pagan  pomp 
has  marched  in.  The  keynote  of  the  new  worship, 
like  that  of  ancient  mythology,  is  multiplicity.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise?  The  church  was  compromis- 
ing with  paganism  at  every  step.  It  was  superim- 
posing  a   saint  on   every  heathen   deity,    a   church 

157 


158  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

festival  on  every  heathen  festival.  The  church  cal- 
endar became  crowded  with  feasts  and  fasts.  The 
cultus  may  be  described  as  Allen  describes  it, — "one 
vast  effort  to  put  a  stamp  upon  both  time  and 
space". 

There  was  really  nothing  new  about  the  process. 
Every  mythology,  as  we  have  seen  (§3)  rests  upon 
an  earlier  mythology.  Every  Zeus  rests  on  an 
earlier  Zeus,  every  Apollo  on  an  earlier  Apollo, 
every  Baal  on  an  earlier  Baal.  So  strong  Is  habit, 
so  powerful  is  human  instinct  for  continuity,  that  it 
is  always  easier  to  baptize  a  paganism  than  to  re- 
form it.  Did  not  Israel  herself  try  the  experiment 
In  a  thorough  manner?  Was  there  not  at  one 
shrine  a  "Baal  of  the  Covenant"?  And  was  not 
the  work  of  the  prophets  precisely  the  work  of  show- 
ing the  difference  between  syncretism  and  reforTn? 
But  the  church  had  made  it  impossible  for  herself 
to  profit  by  the  Old  Testament  as  a  historical  record. 
She  had  either  rejected  that  record  as  "Jewish", 
or  had  allegorized  It  Into  thin  air. 

The  best  that  she  could  do  for  the  Sabbath,  there- 
fore,  was  to  keep  It  on  for  a  while,  side  by  side 
with  the  venerable  day  of  the  Sun,  re-baptized  as 
the  Lord's  Day.  From  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth 
century  we  have  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  In 
which  the  Syrian  Sabbath-keepers  seem  to  receive 


SABBATARIANISM  1 59 

something  of  their  rights,  along  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  "Thou  shalt  observe  the  Sabbath,  on  ac« 
count  of  him  who  ceased  from  his  work  of  creation, 
but  ceased  not  from  his  work  of  providence;  it  is 
a  rest  for  meditation  of  the  law,  not  for  idleness  of 
the  hands."  It  Is  happily  put — unless  possibly  there 
is  some  lurking  antinomianism  in  the  last  phrase. 
In  a  later  chapter  the  observance  of  both  the  seventh 
and  the  first  days  is  enjoined.  Certain  Psalms  are 
especially  recommended  for  morning  and  evening 
service  on  week  days,  "but  principally  on  the  Sabbath 
Day."  "And  on  the  day  of  our  Lord's  resurrection, 
which  is  the  Lord's  Day,  meet  more  diligently,  send- 
ing praise  to  God  who  made  the  universe  by  Jesus." 
The  Sabbath  is  not  to  be  observed  as  a  fast,  except 
the  one  Sabbath  of  the  Lord's  burial. 

But  Sunday  had  originally  been,  as  TertuUian 
says,  "a  day  of  indulgence  for  the  flesh,"  and  two 
weekly  festivals  with  no  intermission  were  soon 
found  to  be  too  many  "moral  holidays" — as  William 
James  would  say.  At  an  early  date  the  fast  of  Fri- 
day was  extended  to  Saturday.  The  Catholic  his- 
torian Alzog  freely  admits  that  this  was  "for  the 
purpose  of  abolishing  the  Jewish  Sabbath."  But 
the  change  of  course  contributed  to  a  partial  rein- 
statement of  the  sabbatic  character  of  the  Sabbath. 
Indeed,  we  may  say  that  the  fasts  of  Wednesday, 


l6o  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Friday,  and  Saturday  were  such  checks  upon  Sunday 
as  the  religious  consciousness  is  always  imposing 
upon  festivals.  The  hunger  of  men  for  God  can 
not  be  appeased  by  festivals  merely.  One  extreme 
will  always  produce  another. 

iVnd  blood  will  tell.  The  Sunday  had  pagan 
blood  in  Its  veins.  The  sun  means  something  dif- 
ferent from  the  sun  of  righteousness.  It  means 
festival  joy  and  festival  license.  It  was  found 
impossible  to  make  the  day  in  any  sense  sabbatic 
without  stringent  law,  and  so  In  time  the  laws 
came.  The  Pharisaic  Sabbath,  the  Pharisaic  taboo, 
returned  for  a  time  In  the  very  heart  of  Catholicism. 

We  find  the  Third  Council  of  Orleans  In  538  for- 
bidding what  Constantine  permitted,  namely,  plow- 
ing and  planting  and  reaping.  The  Second  Council 
of  Macon,  585,  remarks  that  people  are  treating 
Sunday  with  great  contempt,  and  It  proceeds  to  for- 
bid the  yoking  of  oxen,  even  "under  plea  of  neces- 
sity." The  Lord's  Day  Is  "the  day  of  perpetual 
rest.  This  is  shadowed  to  us  in  the  seventh  day  of 
the  law  and  the  prophets."  Under  Charlemagne 
the  Council  of  Mayence  (813)  forbade  all  servile 
work,  and  all  judicial  trials  except  concerning  cap- 
ital crimes.  In  the  same  year  a  council  at  Rheims 
declared  that  no  court  should  be  convened.  In  853 
the  Second  Council  of  Soissons,  under  Charles  the 
(11) 


SABBATARIANISM  l6l 

Bold,  forbade  the  trial  of  causes  not  merely  on  Sun- 
day but  on  various  other  feasts.  Five  years  later, 
however,  the  pope  (Nicholas  I)  gave  somewhat 
gentler  directions  to  the  Burgundians,  then  recent 
converts.  He  told  them  that  "our  hopes  do  not 
depend  upon  the  observance  of  days,  but  upon  the 
true  and  living  end."  But  he  strongly  advised  the 
keeping  not  only  of  Sunday,  but  of  all  the  great 
festivals.  The  pope,  however,  was  not  the  Em- 
peror, and  the  Emperors  enforced  Sunday  laws  with 
severity. 

Similar  legislation  appears  in  England  as  early 
as  Ina,  692.  In  853  Leo  IV,  having  called  a  synod, 
increased  the  vigor  of  the  laws  and  made  them  ap- 
plicable throughout  Christendom.  Under  Alfred 
(876)  theft  on  Sundays  was  punished  by  the  loss 
of  both  hands.  In  Norway  King  Olaus  (1028) 
having  absent-mindedly  whittled  a  stick  on  Sunday, 
gathered  the  chips  and  burnt  them  in  his  hand  by 
way  of  penance. 

And  the  Phariseeism  of  Christianity  did 
not  stop  short  of  forgery.  Abbot  Eustace  of 
Flay,  in  Normandy,  finding  plenty  of  Sunday  des- 
ecration in  England  in  1200,  returned  in  1201  armed 
with  a  remarkable  document.  He  said  that  it  had 
descended  from  heaven  upon  the  altar  of  Saint  Sim- 
eon, in  Golgotha.      It  began,  "I  am  the  Lord,  who 


1 62  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

commanded  you  to  observe  the  holy  day  of  the  Lord, 
and  ye  have  not  kept  it."  The  text  goes  on  to  de- 
clare that  Sunday-breaking  is  the  cause  of  the  bloody 
pagan  invasions  of  Christianity.  Work  is  forbid- 
den from  the  ninth  hour  on  Saturday  until  sunrise  on 
Monday.  If  this  command  is  not  obeyed,  the  fol- 
lowing disasters  will  result :  stones,  wood,  and  hot 
water  will  fall  by  night;  beasts  with  the  heads  of  lions 
and  the  tails  of  camels  shall  devour  your  flesh;  the 
sun  shall  be  darkened;  you  shall  perish  as  Sodom; 
the  Pagans  will  slay  you. 

A  reign  of  terror  set  in.  Sunday  became  taboo, 
automatically  punishing  the  offender  against  its  magic 
sanctity.  A  carpenter  of  Beverly  tried  to  make  a 
wooden  wedge,  and  was  felled  by  paralysis.  A  Web- 
ster met  the  same  fate.  A  man  baked  a  loaf  late  on 
Saturday,  and  on  Sunday  it  gave  forth  blood.  At 
Wakefield  a  miller  began  his  grinding  late  on  Satur- 
day, and  the  mill  gushed  gore  instead  of  flour.  A 
good  woman  who  decided  not  to  bake  the  dough  she 
had  prepared,  found  it  on  Monday  baked  miracu- 
lously. A  woman  who  washed  clothes  late  Saturday 
afternoon  was  miraculously  warned  by  a  heavenly 
visitant;  but  she  persisted,  and  was  attacked  by  a 
swine-like  beast,  which  sucked  her  blood. 

In  such  manner  did  primitive  belief  of  the  most 
ghastly  sort  reassert  itself.       The  appeal  was  in- 


SABBATARIANISM  1 63 

stinctlvely  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  yet  the  Isolated 
case  of  primitive  punishment  in  Numbers  was  in- 
finitely less  revolting  than  the  barbarity  of  this  medi- 
aeval Sabbatarianism.  The  only  valuable  lesson  to 
be  had  from  this  pathetic  period  is  that  nothing  like 
earnest  sabbatic  observance  of  Sunday  has  appeared 
in  Christian  history  without  some  form  of  appeal  to 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  seventh  day  of  the  week. 
Note  that  the  disasters  above  mentioned  were 
thought  to  follow  the  violation  of  the  last  hours 
of  Saturday. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  have  always  been  Chris- 
tian Sabbath-keepers.  The  Abyssinian  church  has 
kept  both  Sabbath  and  Sunday  to  this  day.  The 
Sabbath  long  kept  its  hold  in  Scotland,  and  It  was 
not  until  Margaret  of  Hungary  became  queen,  hav- 
ing survived  her  husband,  Malcolm  Canmore  (d. 
1069)  that  rest  from  labor  ceased  to  be  the  rule. 

If  we  are  to  look  for  the  spirit  of  Spiritual  Sab- 
bathlsm  In  the  Roman  Church,  we  must  not  look 
to  the  history  of  Sunday.  That  Is  only  a  part  of 
the  whole  offence  of  Rome.  Against  the  festival 
spirit.  In  Its  proper  and  narrow  limits,  we  have  noth- 
ing to  say;  but  after  all,  the  law  of  God  is  that  man 
shall  labor  hard  for  six  days  In  the  week.  There 
have  been  times  in  the  history  of  Rome  when  as 
many  as  a  hundred  days  of  the  year  were  regarded 


164  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

as  sacred  festivals.  Such  a  state  of  things  recalls 
the  Egyptian  polytheism  of  times,  and  is  utterly  at 
variance  with  the  Hebraic  notion  of  steady,  serious, 
practical  effort. 

The  sabbatic  idea,  if  found  at  all  in  the  history 
of  Rome,  must  be  found  in  the  philosophy  of  such 
men  as  Aquinas,  and  in  the  poetry  of  Dante's  Para- 
diso.  There  is  some  sense  of  the  religion  of  eter- 
nity, the  vision  of  God.  Such  men  are  a  good  tonic 
for  materialistic  minds  in  any  age.  But  how  far 
Aquinas  and  Dante  are  from  a  solution  of  the 
problem  appears  in  their  meditations  as  to  whether 
"action"  or  "contemplation"  is  the  chief  end  of  life. 
When  half  the  world  is  in  the  cloister  and  the  other 
half  is  pretty  ardently  devoted  to  the  flesh — then 
such  questions  can  arise.  They  can  not  arise  in 
the  soul  of  a  man  who  is  living  a  natural  life,  sharing 
the  common  joys  and  sorrows  of  humanity,  conse- 
crating the  week  to  work  and  the  Sabbath  to  rest. 

§23.  Rejected  by  the  Reformers. — The  Refor- 
mation began  when  the  burden  of  church  authority 
and  the  abuses  of  church  privilege  had  become  in- 
tolerable. Men  longed  to  go  directly  to  God  for 
rest  and  salvation.  The  sale  of  indulgences,  re- 
calling Egyptian  magic  and  depravity,  was  the  lowest 
point  reached  by  the  papal  apostasy.  Luther  made 
his  attack  at  this  point.      Salvation  through  faith, 


SABBATARIANISM  1 65 

not  through  the  church,  became  the  central  thought 
of  the  German  reformation.  Almost  every  other 
Issue  was  forgotten.  The  fact  that  the  church  was 
inextricably  entangled  with  the  civil  power  made 
even  political  issues  more  prominent  than  some  re- 
ligious questions  of  grave  importance. 

Among  these  neglected  questions  was  that  of  the 
deeper  meaning  of  sabbathism.  The  reformers 
were  profoundly  irritated  by  the  Judaistic  features 
of  Catholic  Sabbatarianism,  and  they  rejected  Sab- 
batarianism completely  and  emphatically.  They  re- 
verted to  the  no-sabbathism  of  Justin — except  that 
of  course  they  had  no  metaphysical  speculations  to 
prop  and  no  emperor  to  conciliate.  The  continental 
Sunday  is  the  direct  product  of  no-sabbath  theories 
taught  by  the  continental  reformers. 

Luther  explains  his  position  In  words  so  vigorous 
that  they  have  a  curiously  modern  sound.  It  Is 
the  hard-headed  practical  man  speaking.  "We  cele- 
brate festivals,"  he  says,  "not  for  the  sake  of  Intel- 
ligent and  instructed  Christians  (for  these  have  no 
need  of  them),  but  first  even  for  the  sake  of  the 
body.  Nature  herself  teaches  that  the  working* 
classes,  servants  and  maids,  are  to  be  considered. 
.  .  .  The  second  reason  is  that  in  such  a  day  of  rest, 
leisure  may  be  obtained  for  divine  worship.  .  .  . 
No  day  is  better  or  more  excellent  than  another. 


1 66  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

These  duties  ought  to  be  performed  every  day.  But 
the  majority  of  mankind  are  so  cumbered  with  busi- 
ness that  they  could  not  be  present  at  such  assem- 
blies. Some  one  day,  therefore  at  least,  must  be  se- 
lected in  each  week  for  attention  to  these  matters. 
And  seeing  that  those  who  preceded  us  chose  the 
Sunday — dies  dominica — for  them,  this  harmless 
and  admitted  custom  must  not  be  readily  changed." 
This  has,  we  repeat,  a  curiously  modern  sound,  and 
it  has  also  a  slight  suggestion  of  the  very  unimag- 
inative Luther  who  kept  quoting,  "This  is  my  body." 

"As  for  Sabbath  or  Sunday,"  he  elsewhere  main- 
tains, "there  is  no  necessity  for  its  observance;  and 
if  we  observe  it,  the  reason  ought  to  be,  not  because 
Moses  commanded  it,  but  because  nature  teaches  us 
to  give  ourselves,  from  time  to  time,  a  day's  rest, 
in  order  that  man  and  beast  may  recruit  their 
strength,  and  that  we  may  go  and  hear  the  Word 
of  God  preached."  Again:  "Keep  the  Sabbath 
holy,  for  its  use  both  to  body  and  soul;  but  if  any- 
where the  day  is  made  holy  for  the  day's  sake;  if 
anywhere  any  one  sets  up  its  observance  upon  a 
Jewish  foundation,  then  I  order  you  to  work  on 
it,  to  ride  on  it,  to  do  anything  that  shall  remove 
this  encroachment  on  Christian  liberty." 

The  Augsburg  Confession,  which  was  drawn  up 
by  Melancthon,  and  is  still  the  standard  of  faith  in 


SABBATARIANISM  1 67 

the  Lutheran  Church,  is  equally  plain  in  its  unquali- 
fied no-sabbathism.  Sunday-keeping  is  made  a  mat- 
ter of  mere  convenience.  It  is  in  no  way  connected 
with  the  creation  concept  or  that  of  redemption. 

Calvin's  expressions  are  more  moderate  than 
Luther's,  and  are  worked  out  with  greater  dialectical 
skill.  But  there  is  no  essential  difference  of  opinion 
between  the  two  men.  "Some  unquiet  spirits,"  says 
Calvin,  "have  been  raising  noisy  contentions  con- 
cerning the  Lord's  day.  They  complain  that 
Christians  are  tinctured  with  Judaism,  because  they 
retain  any  observance  of  days.  But  I  reply  that  the 
Lord's  day  is  not  observed  by  us  upon  the  principles 
of  Judaism.  .  .  .  For  we  celebrate  it  not  with  great 
rigor,  as  a  ceremony  which  we  conceive  to  be  a  fig- 
ure of  some  spiritual  mystery,  but  only  use  it  as  a 
remedy  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  order  in 
the  church."  He  very  properly  criticizes  the  one- 
day-in-seven  theory.  "This  is  only  changing  the 
day  in  contempt  of  the  Jews,  while  they  retain  the 
same  opinion  of  the  holiness  of  a  day." 

A  remark  of  Calvin,  that  "we  do  not  by  any 
means  observe  days  as  though  there  were  any  sacred- 
ncss  in  holy  days,  and  as  though  it  were  not  lawful 
to  labor  on  them"  explains,  perhaps,  a  well-estab- 
lished tradition  concerning  the  reformer.  At  Geneva 
there  Is  a  tradition  that  when  John  Knox  visited 


1 68  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Calvin  on  a  Sunday,  he  found  him  bowling  on  a 
green.  At  this  day,  it  is  said,  a  Calvinist  preacher 
at  the  same  place  will  pass  from  the  services  of 
Sunday  to  the  card-table. 

In  England,  the  reformatory  movement  was  at 
first  less  radical  than  in  Germany.  It  was  per- 
sonal alienation  between  Henry  VIII  and  the  Pope 
which  gave  rise  to  the  Church  of  England.  The 
reformation  progressed  during  the  minority  of  Ed- 
ward VL  The  opinions  of  the  English  reformers 
Tyndale,  Fryth,  and  Cranmer  were  similar  to  those 
of  Calvin,  Luther,  Zwingli,  and  Beza. 

Tyndale  declares  that  "We  be  lords  of  the  Sab- 
bath,  and  may  yet  change  it  into  the  Monday,  or  any 
other  day,  as  we  see  need;  or  may  make  every  tenth 
day  holy,  if  we  see  a  cause  why.  We  may  make 
two  in  a  week,  if  it  were  expedient,  and  one  not 
enough  to  teach  the  people." 

Fryth  is  even  more  emancipated.  "We  are  in 
manner  as  superstitious  in  the  Sunday  as  they  [the 
Jews]  were  in  the  Saturday;  yea,  and  we  are  much 
madder.  For  the  Jews  have  the  Word  of  God  for 
their  Saturday,  .  .  .  and  we  have  not  the  Word  of 
God  for  us,  but  rather  against  us."  He  says  that 
Christian  holy  days  "were  instituted  that  the  peo- 
ple should  come  together  to  hear  God's  Word,  re- 
ceive the  sacraments,  and  give  God  thanks.      That 


SABBATARIANISM  1 69 

done,  they  may  return  unto  their  houses  and  do  their 
business  as  on  any  other  day."  Fryth  is  very  se- 
vere on  clergymen  who  impute  sin  to  the  man  who 
works  on  a  holy  day;  it  is  making  sin  in  such  as 
God  leaves  free. 

Cranmer  distinguishes  between  the  ceremonial  and 
the  spiritual  Sabbath  in  a  manner  that  recalls  Justin 
Martyr  and  Jerome.  "This  spiritual  Sabbath — 
that  is,  to  abstain  from  sin  and  do  good — are  all 
men  bound  to  keep  all  the  days  of  their  life."  This 
of  course  is  allegory  pure  and  simple,  and  destroys 
sabbathism  as  effectually  as  Luther's  literalism  does. 

In  the  sixth  year  of  Edward's  reign  the  general 
body  of  the  English  state  and  church  legislated  on 
the  basis  of  the  reformers'  arguments,  with  a  result 
about  as  logical  as  might  be  expected.  The  statute 
first  declared  that  "all  days  and  times  are  of  like 
holiness" — a  remark  which  shows  an  unexpected  gift 
for  Platonism  in  the  practical  British  nature.  Just 
what  it  means  is  not  clear,  though  it  suggests  the 
ancient  proverb  that  all  cows  are  of  the  same  color 
in  the  dark.  It  surely  was  not  meant  to  indi- 
cate that  the  hours  spent  that  year  at  prayer  in 
church  were  not  better  hallowed  than  those  spent 
that  year  in  what  Green  calls  "the  squabbles  of  a 
knot  of  nobles  over  the  spoils  of  the  church." 

Having  denied  that   "there  is  any  certain  time 


lyo  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

prescribed  in  the  Holy  Scriptures",  the  statute  goes 
on  to  assert  that  the  appointment  of  hallowed  times 
for  worship  is  left  "to  be  determined  and  assigned 
orderly  in  every  country  by  the  discretion  of  the 
rulers  and  ministers  thereof."  "Be  it  therefore 
enacted  that  all  the  days  hereafter  mentioned  shall 
be  kept,  and  commanded  to  be  kept  holy  days,  and 
none  other;  that  is  to  say,  all  Sundays  in  the  year, 
the  feasts  of  the  Circumcision  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  of  the  Epiphany,  of  the  Purification,  with  all 
the  rest  now  kept,  and  there  named  particularly, 
and  that  none  other  day  shall  be  kept  and  command- 
ed to  be  kept  holy,  and  to  abstain  from  all  bodily 
labor."  A  later  clause  permits  works  of  necessity, 
and  allows  great  license  of  construction.  Harvest- 
ing, fishing,  working  at  "any  kind  of  work"  are 
made  technically  lawful.  Practically,  therefore, 
the  statute  merely  commands  church  attendance  on 
certain  days.      It  is  a  no-sabbath  statute. 

Edward  died  before  coming  of  age,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  papist  Mary.  She  checked  the  tide 
of  reformation  and  cursed  the  land  with  her  brief 
but  bitter  reign.  Elizabeth  tried  to  restore  the 
comparatively  happy  status  of  Edward's  reign.  She 
was  not  of  radical  temperament  religiously.  Had 
Edward  lived  to  manhood  he  would  probably  have 
proved  a  Protestant  fanatic;  Mary  was  a  Catholic 


SABBATARIANISM  17I 

fanatic;  Elizabeth  was  a  great  politician.  Finally 
the  Act  of  Conformity  drove  the  Puritan  element  out 
of  the  church,  thus  unintentionally  giving  it  a  chance 
to  develop,  and  the  Established  Church  remained 
in  a  state  of  arrested  development. 

Elizabeth  was  fond  of  the  theater,  of  masques 
and  revels,  of  pageants  and  holidays.  Also  she 
loved  money,  and  wished  to  see  business  lively.  She 
classed  Sunday  with  other  holidays,  and  declared 
that  "if  for  any  scrupulosity  or  grudge  of  conscience 
some  should  superstitiously  abstain  from  working 
on  those  days,  they  shall  grievously  offend."  She 
long  permitted  plays  and  games  on  Sunday,  though 
in  1580  the  London  Magistracy  induced  her  to  ban- 
ish them  from  the  city  limits.  Puritan  influence  car- 
ried through  Parliament  a  law  requiring  stricter 
Sunday  observance,  but  the  queen  refused  to  sign 
it.  But  Sabbatarianism  grew  apace  notwithstanding, 
and,  as  Neale  says,  "became  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  a  Puritan." 

In  opposition  to  this  strong  Puritanic  feeling 
James  published  his  Book  of  Sports  (1618).  This 
condemned  Sabbatarianism  and  gave  full  legal  sanc- 
tion to  the  continental  Sunday  in  England.  "It 
was,"  says  Heylyn,  "the  first  blow  which  had  been 
given  to  the  new  Lord's  day  sabbath,  then  so  much 
applauded."      To  make  a  long  story  short,  we  may 


172  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

add  that  the  English  Sunday  never  recovered  from 
that  blow — because  it  strongly  reinforced  the 
blow  dealt  by  the  reformers  to  Catholic  Sabba- 
tarianism. It  is  true  that  the  Puritan  Sunday  fol- 
lowed, and  of  that  we  shall  presently  have  much  to 
say.  But  the  reigns  of  the  Stuarts  followed  Puri- 
tanism. Out  of  the  long  struggles  between  Catholic 
and  Puritan  the  Anglican  Church  emerged  in  much 
its  original  character,  and  its  general  position  on  the 
Sunday  question  is  today  not  essentially  different 
from  what  it  was  in  the  days  of  Edward  VI.  There 
have  of  course  been  interruptions  and  episodes; 
Methodism  was  a  Sabbatarian  episode  in  Anglican 
history,  and  Hessey  records  the  picture  of  one  Grim- 
shaw,  who  was  used  to  go  abroad  in  the  fields  and 
rebuke  persons  whom  he  found  walking  there  on 
Sunday!  "How  different,"  says  Doctor  Hessey, 
"was  the  saying  of  good  old  Bishop  Hacket,  'Serve 
God  and  be  cheerful.'  " 

The  English  Church  has  always  taught  that  the 
civil  and  religious  authorities  have  power  to  ordain 
and  regulate  the  observance  of  holy  days.  Thus 
It  has  come  about  that,  except  in  the  days  of  Puri- 
tanism, Sunday  has  been  little  more  than  a  holiday, 
since  the  Reformation,  either  on  the  Continent  or  in 
England.      There  has  been  no  effort  to  understand 


SABBATARIANISM  1 73 

the  fourth  commandment  in  its  significance  among 
the  ten  eternal  words. 

§24.  Puritan. — The  separation  of  the  Puritans 
from  the  Anglican  Church  was  inevitable.  It  was 
the  logical  result  of  the  Lutheran  movement,  and 
British  vigor  was  equal  to  producing  that  result. 
When  men  turned  away  from  the  Church  to  the 
Bible,  the  eternal  verities  of  the  Decalogue  acquired 
meaning. 

The  first  denominational  result  of  Puritanism  was 
the  English  Seventh-day  Baptists.  There  had  al- 
ways been  some  Sabbath-keeping  dissenters  during 
all  the  centuries  back  to  Christ,  and  the  English 
Seventh-day  Baptists  were  their  spiritual  heirs. 
Their  Puritanism  was  logical,  and  they  returned 
to  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  The  discussion 
immediately  became  warm,  and  the  Puritans  were 
obliged  either  to  become  Sabbath-keepers,  or  find 
a  compromise,  or  return  to  the  Catholic  position. 
Compromise  gained  the  day,  but  not  until  many 
books  were  published  by  the  Sabbath-keepers,  and 
civil  authority  tried  to  suppress  the  new  sect.  Fines, 
imprisonment,  proscription,  and  even  martyrdom 
were  the  fate  of  the  Seventh-day  Baptists. 

The  Puritan  compromise  was  formulated  by 
Nicholas  Bownde,  whose  "Doctrine  of  the  Sabbath 
Plainly  Laid  Forth  and  Soundly  Proven"  appeared 


174  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

in  1595.  Doctor  Bownde's  position  was  that  of 
the  Seventh-day  Baptists  in  all  points  except  that  of 
the  specific  day.  His  attempt  was  to  show  that 
the  Decalogue  is  eternally  binding,  but  that  the 
authority  of  the  fourth  commandment  is  transferred 
to  the  first  day  of  the  week.  Here  is  a  wholly  new 
position  in  the  history  of  the  Sabbath  question.  The 
Catholics  had  wholly  rejected  the  authority  of  the 
commandment,  but  in  the  dark  ages  had  used  church 
authority  and  forged  scripture  to  enforce  a  Sabba- 
tarianism of  the  most  primitive  severity.  The  re- 
formers had  rejected  the  authority  of  the  command- 
ment, and  all  Sabbatarianism  with  it.  But  the  Puri- 
tan theory  of  transferred  authority  was  novel.  It 
has  colored  the  whole  question  of  Sabbath  reform 
for  three  hundred  years,  and  is  still  to  be  reckoned 
with.  As  a  matter  of  history  in  America,  it  was 
extremely  popular  until  within  twenty-five  years. 
Doctor  Bownde's  book  was  republished  by  Seventh- 
day  Baptists  in  the  eighties,  and  the  fatal  flaw  in  its 
argument  was  clearly  seen  by  thousands  of  American 
clergymen. 

Doctor  Bownde's  argument  proceeded  from  the 
propositions  that  as  the  Sabbath  "came  in  with  the 
first  man,  so  it  must  not  go  out  save  but  with  the 
last  man" ;  that  our  Lord  and  all  the  apostles  "estab- 
lished it  by  their  patience" ;  that  if  Adam  needed 


SABBATARIANISM  1 75 

the  Sabbath  before  the  fall,  the  world  lost  in  sin 
needs  it  much  more.  He  denies  that  the  church  has 
power  to  hallow  any  day;  "it  belongeth  only  to 
God  to  sanctify  the  day."  Up  to  this  point  the 
whole  argument,  though  somewhat  literal  in  its  de- 
tails, rests  on  a  clear  perception  of  the  sabbatic  idea. 
But  when  the  spokesman  of  the  compromise  tries 
to  expound  the  transfer  of  the  authority,  he  goes  to 
pieces  completely  and  obviously.  Here  is  the  crucial 
sentence,  and  a  more  perfect  example  of  the  power 
of  language  to  conceal  thought  was  never  penned: 
"But  now  concerning  this  very  special  seventh  day 
that  we  now  keep  in  the  time  of  the  gospel,  that  is 
well  known,  that  it  is  not  the  same  it  was  from  the 
beginning,  which  God  himself  did  sanctify,  and 
whereof  he  speaketh  in  this  commandment,  for  it 
was  the  day  going  before  ourSy  which  in  Latin  re- 
taineth  its  ancient  name,  and  is  called  the  Sabbath, 
which  we  also  grant,  but  so  that  we  confess  it  must 
always  remain,  never  to  be  changed  any  more,  and 
that  all  men  must  keep  holy  this  seventh  day,  and 
none  other,  which  was  unto  them  not  the  seventh, 
but  the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  it  is  so  called  many 
times  in  the  New  Testament,  and  so  it  still  standeth 
in  force,  though  not  unto  that  very  seventh."  We 
protest  that  in  quoting  this  sentence  we  are  quot- 
ing as  clear  a  statement  of  the  change  as  can  be 


176  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

found  in  the  book.  The  italics  are  Doctor  Bownde's ; 
and  with  every  desire  to  acknowledge  Doctor 
Bownde's  spiritual-mindedness,  we  fail  to  see  how 
even  the  italics  can  bring  sense  into  such  a  sentence. 

About  1640  a  measure  was  passed  by  the  House 
of  Commons  for  the  stricter  observance  of  Sunday, 
but  it  was  defeated  in  the  Lords.  Then  came  the 
massacre  of  Protestants  in  Ireland,  1642,  and  soon 
the  bishops  were  driven  from  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  the  King  fled  to  York.  Parliament  took  pos- 
session of  the  government,  and  civil  war  ensued. 
But  Sunday  observance  was  now  enforced  with  a 
vengeance.  Sheriffs  patrolled  the  streets  and  com- 
pelled it.  New  laws  were  enacted  in  1642,  1650, 
1656.  Not  only  was  business  prohibited,  but  church 
attendance  was  enforced.  The  ordinance  of  1656 
fixed  the  Sunday  from  midnight  to  midnight — in  this 
accepting  a  civil  standard.  The  American  colonies 
reckoned  the  Sunday  from  sunset  to  sunset,  in  Jew- 
ish fashion. 

In  Scotland  similar  severity  was  exercised.  In 
1644  the  Six  Sessions  forbade  walking  in  the  street 
after  the  afternoon  sermon.  In  1645  magistrates 
were  directed  to  patrol  the  streets  and  report  of- 
fenders. In  1658  English  soldiers  were  pressed  into 
this  service,  and  were  even  directed  to  arrest  offend- 
ers. But  for  pathos  and  irony  this  instance  is  the 
(12) 


SABBATARIANISM  177 

most  remarkable:  in  1658  Alexander  Calrnie  "was 
delaltit  for  brak  of  Sabbath,  In  bearing  ane  sheep 
from  the  pasture  to  his  house."  In  vain  did  Alex- 
ander plead  that  the  sheep  would  have  died  in  the 
storm.  He  was  "rebukit  for  the  same,  and  ad- 
monished not  to  do  the  like."  We  can  imagine 
how  the  Good  Shepherd  would  have  commented  on 
this  "brak  of  Sabbath." 

A  fuller  test  of  Puritan  Sabbatarianism  was  made 
in  the  American  colonies.  Our  Puritan  ancestors 
modeled  the  New  England  colonies  after  the  He- 
braic theocracy.  The  result  was  a  state  in  a  church. 
There  was  vitality  in  the  laws  of  the  colonies,  and 
In  the  execution  of  them.  There  was  at  first  a 
rigid  common  law,  founded  on  the  Mosaic  codes. 
Later,  special  Sunday  statutes  became  necessary. 

In  1658  Plymouth  forbade  burden  bearing,  etc., 
with  a  fine  of  twenty  shillings  or  a  four  hour  im- 
prisonment in  the  stocks.  In  1665  Plymouth  at- 
tached similar  penalties  to  sleeping  in  church.  In 
1629  Massachusetts  required  labor  to  cease  on  Sat- 
urday at  three,  in  order  to  give  time  for  proper 
preparation  for  Sunday.  Massachusetts  referred 
difficult  questions  to  the  Reverend  Elders  for  advice, 
and  In  1644  that  body  declared  that  "any  sin  com- 
mitted with  a  high  hand,  as  the  gathering  of  sticks 


178  SPIRITUAL  SABBATISM 

on  the  Sabbath  Day,  may  be  punished  with  death." 
New  Haven,  in  1647,  provided  that  Sabbath- 
breakers  should  be  brought  into  court  and  punished 
in  equity.  But  a  few  years  later  New  Haven 
likewise  decreed  that  persons  guilty  of  "sinful 
servile  work  or  unlawful  sport"  should,  in  case  the 
court  found  the  sin  to  have  been  committed  "proudly, 
presumptuously,  and  with  a  high  hand,"  be  put  to 
death.  Connecticut  (1650)  had  a  law  hardly  less 
severe.  Robbery  committed  on  the  Lord's  day 
should  be  punished  by  several  punishments.  Includ- 
ing loss  of  an  ear;  repeated,  by  the  further  loss  of 
the  second  ear;  twice  repeated,  hy  death. 

Such  was  Puritan  Sabbatarianism  in  the  New 
England  colonies.  This  was  no  "moral  substitute 
for  war;"  this  zvas  war.  Here,  within  three 
centuries  of  our  own  day,  we  have  a  form  of  Sab- 
batarianism severer  than  the  Pharisaic.  It  Is  com- 
parable only  to  that  of  the  dark  ages.  No  wonder 
that  we  have  revolted  from  Sabbatarianism,  and  that 
we  have  welcomed  the  later  immigrants  who  have 
brought  to  our  shores  the  festival  spirit  of  modern 
France  and  Italy. 

And  yet  there  was  a  strong  spiritual  element  in 
Puritanism.  The  Puritans  were  severe  because 
heaven  and  hell  were  to  them  realities,  and  life  was 
a    gleam    of    opportunity   between   two    eternities. 


SABBATARIANISM  179 

They  had  an  iron  sense  of  duty,  an  iron  righteous- 
ness. Their  Hebraism  is  the  root  of  New  England 
honesty;  it  is  our  hope  in  the  present  perils  of  the 
republic.  The  attitude  of  Puritanism  toward  the 
Bible  was  an  immense  gain  over  that  of  Catholicism. 
Puritan  Sabbatarianism,  like  that  of  the  grim  passage 
in  Numbers,  is  a  step  toward  an  earnest  use  of 
sacred  time  as  included  within  the  eternal. 

The  warnings  that  it  brings  are,  first,  the  general 
warning  that  "ignorance  in  action"  is  always  ter- 
rible; and  secondly,  the  warning  that  civil  authority 
can  never  make  a  Sabbath.  It  would  seem  as  if 
this  last  lesson  ought,  by  this  time,  to  be  effectively 
stamped  by  history  upon  the  minds  of  Christians. 
But  it  is  not.  There  are  still  multitudes  of  good 
men  invoking  the  aid  of  legislation  not  merely  to 
protect  but  to  secure  Sunday  worship.  Such  men 
can  only  look  upon  advocates  of  spiritual  sabbath- 
Ism  as  friends  of  atheism,  physicians  whose 
method  Is  kill  or  cure.  But  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
remains  what  It  has  always  been,  a  kingdom  not  of 
this  world. 


Chapter  V. 
THE  PRESENT  SITUATION. 

§25.  The  decay  of  Sunday. — History  is  an  or- 
ganic whole,  and  the  history  of  the  world,  as 
Schiller  said,  is  the  judgment  of  the  world. 
Men's  attitude  toward  sacred  time  is  quite  as 
instructive  now  as  it  ever  was.  In  America  today 
there  is  every  typical  attitude  ever  taken  toward 
the  Sabbath  and  the  Sunday. 

And  first  let  us  generously  and  gladly  acknowl- 
edge that  the  instinct  for  Spiritual  Sabbathism  is 
not  dead.  We  have  endeavored  in  the  preceding 
pages  to  be  not  only  impartial,  but  appreciative. 
We  have  granted  the  light  which  lighteth  every  man 
coming  into  the  world,  and  we  have  searched  for 
it  in  forbidding  places,  even  perhaps  in  forbidden 
places.  And  we  are  not  to  close  in  a  fanatical  spirit 
a  discussion  which  at  the  beginning  we  declared  to 
concern  the  broadest  interests  of  the  race.  Wher- 
ever men  will  to  express  their  faith  in  the  eternal 
by  consecrating  their  work  and  rest  in  time,  there 

180 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  I  6  I 

is  the  prophecy  of  the  Spiritual  Sabbathism  toward 
which  men  have  blindly  striven.  That  effort  is  not 
limited  to  the  Jew  or  the  Christian  who  observes  the 
seventh  day,  nor  is  it  denied  to  him  who  on  Sun- 
day sincerely  strives  to  make  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  his  salvation.  A  formal  or  a  Pharisaic  ob- 
servance of  the  Sabbath  is  not  a  saving  observance. 
God  alone  knows  how  much  or  how  little  there  is 
in  us  of  the  sabbathism  which  saves  from  sin.  He 
is  the  searcher  and  trier  of  hearts,  and  he  knoweth 
his  own. 

But  a  man  must  be  blindly  at  ease  In  ZIon  not  to 
recognize  in  America  today  the  ascendency  of  secu- 
larism and  holldayism,  and  the  vain  efforts  of  Puri- 
tan blood  to  compel  Sabbatarianism.  A  single  in- 
stance will  illuminate  the  situation.  A  few  years 
ago  a  Jewish  peddler,  who  had  probably  attended 
the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath,  was  arrested  on  Sun- 
day in  New  York  for  selling  shoe-strings.  At  the 
same  time  and  In  the  same  city  the  saloons,  the  gam- 
bling dens,  and  the  brothels  were  In  full  blast,  and  the 
last-named  were  probably  much  better  attended  than 
on  any  work-day  of  the  preceding  week.  For  sheer 
grim  irony,  this  petty  Puritan  effort  to  check  petty 
Judalstic  Sunday-breaking  by  civil  means,  while  per- 
mitting the  worst  license  of  nature-worship — for 
sheer  grim  irony  of  history  this  surpasses  the  priests 


1 82  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

of  Elgabal  excluding  the  Jews,  or  Diocletian  burn- 
ing them.  The  pagan  tyrant  did  not  shelter  himself 
behind  the  fourth  commandment.  Like  the  drunk- 
ard, the  gambler,  and  the  prostitute,  he  openly  put 
"nature" — Bacchus,  Fortuna,  Isis — above  Jehovah. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  churches  are  not  at  ease 
in  Zion  over  these  matters,  and  we  will  summarize 
briefly  the  present  attitude  of  Protestants  and  that 
of  Catholics. 

Baptists  claim  to  be  representative  Protestants, 
reposing  their  faith  in  Scripture  as  against  Pontiff. 
And  Baptists  are  coming  to  feel  that  Baptists  do  not 
now  observe  the  Sunday  on  the  authority  of  the 
fourth  commandment;  and  they  recognize  that  Sun- 
day is  rapidly  decaying.  Twenty-three  years  ago 
Professor  Wilkinson,  in  an  article  marked  by  trench- 
ant precision  and  perfect  lucidity,  put  this  question : 
"As  long  as  the  state  of  the  case  is  what  we  all 
of  us  perfectly  well  know  it  to  be  respecting  Sunday 
observance  among  Christians,  is  it,  can  it  be,  useful 
for  us  to  talk  piously  against  the  Sunday  newspapers, 
Sunday  excursions,  Sunday  concerts,  Sunday  open- 
ing of  places  of  amusement?"  These  are  the  words 
of  a  leader  who  has  the  insight  and  the  courage 
to  fasten  a  large  share  of  the  responsibility  for  the 
decay  of  Sunday  on  Christians. 

Professor  Wilkinson   is  too   accurate   a   scholar 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  1 83 

to  have  used  the  term  "Sabbath-breaking  Christians." 
But  Methodists  have  not  shrunk  from  using  this 
term.  Some  of  them  have  remained  true  to  the 
spirit  which  sent  men  into  the  fields  near  London 
to  report  the  movements  of  "Sabbath-breakers." 
Camp-meetings  have  led  Methodism  into  an  unholy 
alliance  with  railroads;  it  was  pointed  out  in  1893 
that  the  Desplaines  Camp-meeting  Association  had 
been  receiving  "thirty  per  cent  of  all  Sunday  fares 
to  and  from  its  grounds  for  twenty  years."  The 
Interior  pointed  out  the  fact  at  first  mildly  and  then 
more  warmly.  "It  is  not  only  a  sin  against  God, 
it  is  a  burning  shame  and  disgrace  to  Methodism, 
and  an  obstruction  to  all  churches  in  their  efforts  to 
hallow  the  Sabbath."  It  does  seem  odd  to  listen 
to  the  preachers  of  the  Holiness  Association  as  they 
declaim  against  Sunday  desecration,  and  then  pay 
them  with  money  received  from  railroads  from  Sun- 
day travel  to  and  from  the  meeting. 

Congregationalists,  remembering  their  Puritan 
ancestry,  have  bitterly  lamented  the  loss  of  the 
Scotch  or  Puritan  Sabbath.  The  late  Dr.  Leonard 
Woolsey  Bacon  dated  this  loss  from  the  Civil  War 
— those  "five  years  during  which  Christians  of  va- 
rious creeds  intermingled  as  never  before,  and  the 
Sunday  laws  were  dumb,  inter  anna,  not  only  in  the 
field,  but  in  the  home  churches."      "Early  legisla- 


1 84  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

tlon,"  he  said,  "had  not  steered  clear  of  the  error 
of  attempting  to  enforce  Sabbath-keeping  as  a  re- 
ligious duty  by  civil  penalties.  .  .  .  The  just  protest 
against  this  wrong  was  undiscriminating,  tending  to 
defeat  the  righteous  and  salutary  laws  that  aimed 
simply  to  secure  for  the  citizen  the  privilege  of  a 
weekly  day  of  rest." 

Presbyterians,  who  have  always  combined  culture, 
conservatism,  and  loyalty  to  creed,  early  detected 
the  decay  of  Sunday.  They  have  spoken  sternly 
against  the  Sunday  newspaper  and  Sunday  travel. 
They  have  insisted  that  weak  Sunday-keepers  need 
the  support  of  Sunday  laws.  In  1897  Secretary 
Hathaway,  of  the  American  Sabbath  Union,  declar- 
ed that  "there  is  a  very  widespread,  silent — but 
deep — current  of  unbelief  In  the  fourth  command- 
ment, as  covering  the  first  day  of  the  week." 

Inasmuch  as  the  Anglican  Church  never  adopted 
Puritan  views  of  Sunday,  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  has  not  been  so  much  concerned  as  the  above- 
mentioned  churches  at  the  decay  of  the  Puritan 
Sunday.  Nevertheless  It  has  perceived  the  danger. 
"What  shall  we  say?"  asks  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  D. 
McConnell.  "What  shall  the  Christian  father  say 
to  his  well-grown  son  when  he  sees  him  getting  ready 
to  go  to  the  country  for  the  Sunday  on  his  wheel?  .  .  . 
We   are   disputing   among   ourselves   like   a   lot   of 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  1 85 

Roman  pedants  while  the  barbarians  are  at  the  gates. 
.  .  .  It  is  more  important  that  we  should  have  a 
congregation  than  that  we  should  have  a  book  of 
common  prayer,  that  there  should  be  a  church  than 
that  there  should  be  a  creed." 

Roman  Catholicism  is  an  important  factor  in  the 
situation,  and  will  be  yet  a  more  important  factor. 
It  was  Rome  who  first  taught  that  the  ten  com- 
mandments are  not  "binding"  on  Christians,  and 
whoever  now  teaches  that  doctrine  is,  in  so  far,  a 
Roman  Catholic.  Cardinal  Gibbons'  "Our  Chris- 
tian Heritage"  puts  the  Sunday  question  logically. 
So  do  the  "Letters  of  Senex"  on  the  Sabbath  Ques- 
tion. "The  pages  of  this  brochure,"  says  the 
Catholic  Mirror,  "unfold  to  the  reader  one  of  the 
most  glaringly  conceivable  contradictions  existing  be- 
tween the  practice  and  theory  of  the  Protestant 
world,  and  unsusceptible  of  any  rational  solution  on 
the  theory  claiming  the  Bible  alone  as  the  teacher, 
which  unequivocally  and  most  positively  commands 
Saturday  to  be  kept  holy.  .  .  .  They  stand  before  the 
world  the  representatives  of  a  system  the  most  in- 
defensible, self-contradictory,  and  suicidal  that  can 
be  imagined.  .  .  .  What  Protestant  can  with  clear 
conscience  continue  to  disobey  the  command  of  God 
enjoining  Saturday  to  be  kept,  a  command  which  his 


lot)  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

teacher,  the  Bible,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation  re- 
cords as  the  will  of  God!" 

This  burst  of  righteous  Indignation  against  Prot- 
estant inconsistency  is  something  too  ardent;  it  is 
not  of  the  right  breed.  But  It  betrays  the  writer 
into  disclosing  the  genuine  antinomianism  which  at 
bottom  has  characterized  Rome  ever  since  the  Sun- 
day festival  found  its  way  into  the  church.  "What 
Protestant  can  continue  to  disobey  the  command  of 
God?"  asks  the  Mirror,  the  obvious  Implication  be- 
ing that  only  Catholics  can  continue  to  disobey  the 
command  of  God.      It  is  an  unenviable  privilege. 

In  a  later  article  the  same  journal  remarks:  "The 
Catholic  church,  as  Father  Zahn  remarked  in  his 
recent  admirable  volume,  has  ceased  to  contend  with 
Protestants,  because  there  is  no  need  of  it.  Sagacious 
men  in  the  Protestant  ranks  themselves  admit  that 
as  a  representative  system  It  is  so  rapidly  disintegrat- 
ing that  before  long  it  must  cease  to  exist.  .  .  .  The 
drift  Is  directly  away  from  faith  In  the  divinity  and 
teachings  of  Christ.  Is  it  not,  indeed,  away  from 
belief  in  God?"  Perhaps  the  Mirror  overestimates 
the  weakness  of  divided  Protestantism,  but  the  vital 
fact  remains  that  unless  Protestantism  takes  a 
stronger  grasp  on  an  authoritative  Bible  as  over 
against  an  authoritative  church,  the  keystone  to  the 
Protestant  arch  is  gone. 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  I  87 

Protestantism  attempted  to  build  on  higher  ground 
than  Catholicism  occupied.  It  openly  denounced 
the  position  of  absolute  ecclesiastical  authority.  But 
it  distinctly  continued  to  occupy  the  old  Catholic  no- 
sabbathism  position,  at  the  same  time  discarding 
church  authority.  The  result  is  that  on  the  whole, 
and  in  America  at  least,  Rome  holds  its  communi- 
cants to  the  church-rules  about  Sunday  better  than 
Protestantism  holds  its  communicants  to  the  sab- 
batic regard  for  Sunday.  And  in  every  attempt  to 
secure  sabbatic  Sunday  observance  by  civil  legisla- 
tion, Protestants  have  had  to  appeal  to  Catholics 
for  help.  In  order  to  secure  the  (valueless)  inter- 
ference of  Congress  in  the  attempt  to  close  the  Co- 
lumbian Exposition  on  Sunday,  they  were  obliged  to 
seek  the  assistance  of  their  ancient  foe.  When  the 
signature  of  Cardinal  Gibbons  had  been  secured, 
Protestants  heralded  that  signature  as  representing 
seven  millions  of  the  friends  of  Sunday.  They  did 
this  apparently  without  a  sense  of  humiliation. 
Their  fathers  would  have  died  sooner  than  ask  for 
such  an  alliance  or  boast  of  it.  When  the  Cardinal 
had  signed,  Congress  acted;  but  its  action  was  evad- 
ed with  perfect  ease.  These  facts  show  that  even 
Catholicism  is  powerless  in  America  as  against  the 
vast  secular  public.  But,  religiously,  Catholicism 
holds  the  balance  of  power.      Protestants  come  to 


1 88  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

her  for  help,  and  Protestantism  is  therefore,  as 
Cardinal  Gibbons  puts  it,  "no  longer  a  foe  to  be 
feared." 

Catholicism  is  not  noisy  concerning  its  plans  and 
its  purposes.  But  untiring  persistence,  adroit  man- 
agement, and  unlimited  resources  are  an  adequate 
substitute  for  loud  talk.  Its  experience  in  sup- 
pressing heretics  and  in  baptizing  secularism  is  two 
milleniums  long.  Its  organization  is  the  marvel  of 
history,  and  shows  a  power  of  adaptation  to  en- 
vironment which  is  constantly  underestimated  by  dis- 
senters. It  is  not  wanting  in  virility  today.  Its 
claims  to  the  ownership  of  Sunday  are  substantiated 
by  history,  and  it  can  not  be  eliminated  from  the 
future  of  sabbathism. 

§26.  How  can  we  attain  Spiritual  Sahhathism? — • 
Some  years  ago  the  late  M.  Renan  exclaimed, 
"Christianity  is  dead;  it  has  lost  its  Sunday!"  The 
remark  had  a  certain  significance,  for  It  came  from  a 
distinguished  historian  of  the  People  of  Israel,  and 
from  the  author  of  what  once  passed  for  a  Life  of 
Jesus.  It  should  not,  perhaps,  be  taken  too  seri- 
ously, for  it  is  the  utterance  of  a  man  who,  con- 
templating the  impurity  of  France,  said  that  "per- 
haps the  gay  people  are  in  the  right  after  all."  We 
know  very  well  who  the  gay  people  were  in  antiquity; 
they  were  the  worshipers  of  Baal;   and  it  is  not 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  I  89 

without  significance  that  a  historian  of  Israel, 
brought  up  among  celibate  Catholic  monks,  should 
view  with  equanimity  both  the  death  of  Christianity 
and  the  survival  of  the  gay  people.  Renan  boasted 
that  he  alone  in  his  century  had  understood  Jesus  and 
Francis  of  Assisi.  Well,  long  before  St.  Francis 
was  born,  Gnostics  had  made  the  same  boast  about 
their  understanding  of  Jesus,  and  on  their  amulets 
we  see  to  this  day  the  phallic  serpent  of  the  sun. 
A  historian  should  be  the  last  person  to  boast. 

Christianity  is  not  dead;  it  has  hardly  begun  to 
live.  It  was  a  Hebraic  revelation,  and  the  experi- 
ment of  meeting  modern  problems  in  the  spirit  of 
a  purified  Hebraism  has  never  been  tried.  We  have 
tried  a  Puritan  version  of  Hebraism;  and  it  has 
failed.  We  have  tried  Hellenized  and  Solarized 
versions  of  Hebraism,  and  they  have  failed.  But 
the  religion  which  brings  eternity  into  time,  which 
gives  a  holy  earnestness  to  practical  effort,  which 
brings  respect  for  law  without  idolatry  of  the  law 
— this  is  to  be  the  achievement  of  the  future.  We 
do  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  state  it  in  adequate 
terms.  We  do  not  prophesy  some  sudden  revo- 
lution which  will  overcome  the  distance  between 
primitive  types  of  men  now  surviving  and  the 
higher  type  of  man  toward  which  our  Lord  pointed 
us — though    neither    in    biology    nor    in    religion 


190  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

are  sudden  revolutions  and  "mutations"  unknown. 
But  we  prophesy  that  the  Holy  Spirit  will  lead 
men,  sooner  or  later,  into  the  profound  meaning  of 
what  we  have  called  Spiritual  Sabbathism.  The 
process,  which  must  be  a  process  of  spiritual  strug- 
gle, a  strife  between  sense  and  spirit,  will  in  time  so 
enlighten  the  intellect  that  a  consecrated  service  of 
the  whole  man  will  be  possible. 

Jesus  is  our  guide.  He  gave  us  the  assurance  that 
the  Spirit  will  comfort  and  illumine;  it  is  to  be  no 
casual  visitant  or  a  chance  acquaintance,  but  a  con- 
stant companion  and  a  continued  spiritual  creator 
within  us.  He  knew  the  dangers  of  idolatry,  and  that 
it  was  expedient  that  he  go  away  that  he  might  come 
again  in  spirit.  But,  said  he,  'T  will  not  leave 
you;  /  will  not  leave  you."  Thus  he  transmuted  the 
authority  of  his  bodily  presence  Into  the  ahiding  of 
the  spirit  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  each  soul.  His 
"Farewell"  was  an  "All  hail."  His  eternity  was 
not  broken,  and  he  is  the  spirit  within  us  of  the 
Sabbath  of  God. 

By  Greek  philosophy  (as  it  then  was)  and  by 
compromise  with  nature-worship.  Christian  history 
went  Into  the  morass  of  metaphysical  no-sabbathism, 
sensual  festival,  and  spiritual  poverty.  Out  of  that 
morass  the  first  step  must  be,  not  an  appeal  to  legal- 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  I9I 

ism,  but  a  restoration  of  faith  In  Christ  and  the 
mission  of  the  Spirit. 

But  in  avoiding  legalism  we  must  not  fall  Into 
any  philosophical  pit.  No  excursion  Into  the 
intellectual  labyrinth  of  time  and  eternity  can 
furnish  us  with  a  substitute  for  spiritual  re- 
ligion. Metaphysics  Is  not  religion,  however 
superior  it  may  be  to  sensuality,  or  however 
great  its  aid  may  be  in  formulating  religious 
experience.  This  fact  is  what  lies  at  the 
root  of  Hebraism,  which  has  always  stood  for 
earnest  practical  effort  In  distinction  from  dreaming. 
It  is  one  thing  to  know  the  best  that  thinkers  have 
thought  and  said  concerning  the  puzzle  of  time.  It 
is  quite  another  thing  to  use  time  practically  and 
spiritually,  in  such  a  manner  that  we  shall  share  the 
peace  which  passeth  understanding. 

Of  that  peace  how  great  Is  the  need  today !  Deep 
joy  in  service  because  we  serve  the  eternal — how  sadly 
our  joyless  age  needs  that!  For  in  the  midst  of  our 
machine-ridden  age,  in  the  midst  of  our  restless 
activity,  there  is  less  and  less  of  deep  joy.  The  age 
is  unsatisfied,  nervous,  materialistic,  seeking  rest  and 
finding  none. 

Men  boast  that  ours  is  an  energetic  age. 
It  is  certain  that  of  worldly  energy  there  is 
no    lack.       Moreover,    we    are    glad    to    applaud 


192  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

every  sign  of  moral  energy.  We  honor  every 
determined  effort  to  accomplish  a  good  work; 
to  grapple  with  injustice  whether  it  appears 
in  employer  or  employed;  to  purify  politics;  to  make 
honesty  honorable ;  to  execute  the  civil  law  whenever 
the  civil  law  does  not  meddle  with  spiritual  things; 
to  protect  the  purity  of  womanhood  and  the  institu- 
tion of  the  home;  to  prevent  and  stamp  out  disease; 
to  make  local  pride  honorable  and  local  government 
dignified;  to  cultivate  loyalty  to  the  nation  and  char- 
ity to  other  nations.  What  is  more  important,  we 
honor  every  Christian  who  keeps  steadily  in  mind 
the  fundamental  duty  and  joy  of  Christians,  that  of 
bringing  the  world  to  a  knowledge  of  the  Christ. 
The  world  needs  something  more  than  culture  and 
Improved  political  machinery.  It  needs  salvation; 
It  needs  redemption;  It  needs  re-creation  of  the 
inner  man.  Therefore  there  Is  still,  and  more  than 
ever,  the  task  of  the  missionary.  These  are  things 
to  be  done,  and  to  be  done  by  Christians.  They  are 
to  be  done  constructively  and  not  by  carping  criti- 
cism; by  consecrated  effort,  and  not  by  restless  talk. 
But  our  energy  Is  not  all  energy.  Some  of  It  Is 
mere  neurotic  busy-ness.  In  any  asylum  we  may  see 
people  busier  than  even  our  strenuous  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. When  vitality  ebbs  and  nerves  get  the  upper 
hand,  mere  motion  begins.  The  dying  man  picks 
(13) 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  I93 

at  the  bedclothes  because  he  is  dying.  Some 
of  our  philosophy,  some  of  our  religion,  some  of  our 
reform  is  of  this  restless  and  aimless  nature.  It 
is  ineffective. 

The  religious  quest  is  always  a  quest  for  spiritual 
energy  and  calm.  It  is  life  whereof  our  nerves  are 
scant.  You  can  see  this  truth  at  every  step  of 
religion,  from  the  sun-worshiper  seeking  to  renew 
the  crops  by  magically  compelling  the  generative 
life  of  the  sun,  up  to  the  sabbatic  concept  of  pure 
Hebraism,  where  the  infinite  energy  of  Jehovah 
descends  into  human  purposes  and  makes  them  ade- 
quate to  living  the  eternal  life  in  time.  We  seek 
energy,  the  peaceful  and  adequate  and  joyful  fulfill- 
ment of  function.  We  seek  to  work  as  God  works, 
without  fret  or  discouragement. 

Not  until  we  grasp  this  conception  of  life,  which 
it  was  a  part  of  the  mission  of  Jesus  to  teach,  can 
we  hope  for  rest.  Then,  through  faith  in  our 
Redeemer,  we  can  live  for  the  eternal;  then  we  can 
conquer  sense  and  let  the  prizes  of  the  merely  tem- 
poral go  by  us  without  regret.  Then  we  can  know 
that  after  all,  a  glad  obedience  is  the  deepest  secret 
of  life.  To  see  things  as  they  are,  to  attain  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  to  be  scientific — this  is  also  good. 
But   obedience  is  better  than  knowledge,   and  de- 


194  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

termined  effort  to  be  spiritually  minded  is  better  than 
wishing  the  world  were  less  wicked. 

Realizing  that  we  are  always  in  Eternity  and  in 
the  presence  of  God  promotes  spiritual  energy. 
This  certainly  does  not  mean  living  in  the  fear  of 
death,  or  as  if  each  day  were  to  be  your  last.  To 
Spiritual  Sabbathism  a  man's  last  day  on  earth  is 
only  one  day  in  eternal  life,  and  death  is  a  mere  in- 
cident. But  realizing  that  one  is  living  in  eternity 
does  make  one  stop  and  consider  whether  he  is  liv- 
ing right.  It  compels  frequent  self-examination. 
It  takes  us  out  of  the  grooves  of  habit,  and  helps 
us  to  transfer  our  criticisms  of  others  to  ourselves. 
It  helps  us  to  stand  on  the  shore  of  time  and  note 
the  quality  of  our  character  as  it  flows  by.  It  gives 
us  higher  views  of  our  responsibilities.  It  demands 
sabbatic  hours  and  days,  times  when  we  are  much 
alone  with  God.  It  requires  of  us  personal  and 
private  sabbathism  with  God.  The  facing  of  death 
sifts  out  true  values  and  shows  what  is  of  eternal 
worth.  But  the  calm  and  fearless  facing  of  life  as 
a  whole  is  yet  more  valuable ;  sabbathism  helps  us  to 
distinguish,  amid  our  aims  and  purposes,  what  are 
golden  and  what  are  dross. 

§27.  Protestants  must  lead. — Any  essential  im- 
provement in  the  religious  condition  of  America 
must  come,  first,  through  improvement  of  personal 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  1 95 

religious  experience,  and  secondly,  through  religious 
organization.  The  Sabbath  question  is  and  always 
must  be  a  religious  question  pure  and  simple. 
Sunday  laws,  enforced  idleness — these  can  not 
solve  the  problem.  There  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  a  "Civil  Sabbath."  If  the  history  of  Pharisee- 
ism,  Catholicism,  and  Puritanism  does  not  prove  this, 
then  Schiller  was  wrong,  the  history  of  the  world 
is  not  the  judgment  of  the  world,  and  men  may  go 
on  forever  repeating  the  follies  of  the  past.  It  is 
easy  to  charge  Seventh-day  Baptists  with  being 
"legalists,"  but  their  legalism  is  innocent  and  in- 
nocuous compared  with  the  legalism  of  those  alleged 
"Sabbath  Reformers"  who  rely  on  civil  law.  When 
the  real  spiritual  reform  comes  it  will  come  first 
within  the  churches,  and  especially  within  Protestant 
churches. 

The  situation  ought  to  be  clear  enough.  The 
logic  pinches.  The  verdict  of  history  is  emphatic. 
Either  Protestants  must  lead  toward  Spiritual  Sab- 
bathism,  or  humanly  speaking,  it  will  not  be  attained. 

Is  a  specific  day  demanded?  The  purpose  of  life  is 
eternal  life;  it  is  the  conquest  of  sense  and  the  at- 
tainment of  spiritual  freedom  for  ourselves,  for  our 
children,  for  all  men.  The  profound  law  of  Je- 
hovah suggests,  as  the  practical  means  to  this  end, 
six     days     of     consecrated     labor     followed     by 


196  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

one  of  consecrated  rest.  That  divine  proportioning 
of  days  has  proved  more  powerful  for  good 
than  any  human  device  for  the  use  of  time.  Catholi- 
cism in  the  beginning  saved  itself  partly  by  ignoring 
the  absolute  no-sabbathism  of  TertuUian.  Luther's 
church  has  done  the  same  in  spite  of  Luther's  theory. 
This  proportioning  avoids  the  festival  idleness  of 
paganism,  with  its  too  numerous  holidays,  and  it 
avoids  the  deadening  effects  of  constant  labor.  Un- 
less a  weekly  rest  is  observed,  "mere  convenience" 
soon  encroaches  upon  the  principle  of  rest. 
'  But  is  the  seventh  day  necessarily  the  specific  day? 
Is  it  not  approaching  madness  to  suggest  a 
return  to  the  Hebraic  Sabbath?  Could  a 
mere  change  of  day  bring  results  of  any  impor- 
tance? To  advocate  such  a  change — is  it  not  mak- 
ing a  fetish  of  time,  magnifying  a  trifle,  returning 
to  a  superstition?  Have  we  not  reached  the  very 
threshold  of  a  great  truth — namely  that  all  religious 
ideas  must  be  more  and  more  spiritualized — only  to 
fall  prostrate  before  entering? 

We  answer,  first,  that  no  one  who  hais  done  us 
the  honor  to  read  this  book  can  possibly  convict  us 
of  maintaining  that  a  merely  formal  change  from 
one  day  to  another  could  have  the  slightest  effect 
on  character — unless  it  be  to  increase  the  self- 
righteousness  of  the  convert.      It  should  hardly  be 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  1 97 

necessary  to  repeat  the  contents  of  our  first  chapter, 
or  to  deny  that  any  day  has  a  magical  quality  in 
itself.  But  there  is  a  divine  power  in  divine 
ideas,  a  creative  influence  that  surpasses  all  magic. 
The  world  is  ruled  by  ideas  and  ideals,  for  these  are 
the  method  of  God's  revelation,  and  they  can  be  used 
to  salvation  or  corrupted  unto  death.  The  sabbatic 
idea,  the  idea  of  consecrated  work  and  consecrated 
rest,  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  forces  that  civiliza- 
tion has  known.  It  is  the  historical  fact  that  this 
idea  came  through  the  week  and  the  seventh  day  of 
the  Hebrews.  It  came  as  a  loving  command  and 
a  saving  suggestion  from  Jehovah.  It  was  an 
anticipation  of  man's  spiritual  needs  and  his  intel- 
lectual inquiries.  To  the  latter  the  Bible  seems 
to  answer,  "If  you  would  grasp  the  nature  of  time 
and  eternity,  you  must  do  so  by  action,  by  spiritual 
activity.  If  you  would  solve  the  problem  of  the 
eternal,  your  wisest  procedure  is  to  imitate  the  cre- 
ator by  the  consecrated  labor  of  six  days  and  the 
consecrated  rest  of  the  seventh." 

The  idea  of  sacred  rest  has  never  been  long  as- 
sociated with  any  day  but  the  seventh.  Fair  trials 
have  been  made  again  and  again  to  enforce  sab- 
batic rest  on  the  Sunday.  Every  means  of  enforce- 
ment has  been  resorted  to;  allegory,  papal  author- 
ity,   imperial    authority,    parliamentary    authority, 


198  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

congressional  authority,  "biblical"  authority  so- 
called,  and  forged  scripture;  and  to  these  we 
must  add  the  fear  of  supernatural  punishment  here 
and  hereafter,  and  the  fear  of  death  at  the  hands 
of  the  hangman.  But  these  things  have  been  tried 
in  vain,  for  the  Sunday  had  neither  a  divine  com- 
mand nor  a  pure  history  nor  a  sound  philosophy 
behind  it. 

Blood  will  tell,  and  Sunday  is  reverting  to  its  pre- 
Christian  type.  That  type  was  at  best  the  military 
unrest  of  Mithraism;  at  its  worst  it  was  the  unrest 
of  Mithra-Anahita,  an  unrest  to  which  we  will  not 
apply  the  plain  name.  Mingled  with  these  elements 
of  unrest  there  were  various  others  later  on.  In  the 
first  century  there  was  the  intellectual  unrest  of 
Gnosticism,  and  the  abnormal  excitement  and  unrest 
of  the  thousands  who  expected  the  speedy  return  of 
the  Risen  One.  In  the  second  century  there  was 
added  that  arrogant  impatience  with  the  past  and 
that  excitable  hatred  of  Jehovah  which  gave  us  no- 
sabbathism.  To  all  these  was  added  the  unrest  of 
the  Christian  conscience  when  Sunday  legislation  was 
accepted  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ  was  compro- 
mised by  the  kingdom  of  this  world.  That  unrest 
shows  itself  today  in  all  efforts  to  compel  Sabba- 
tarianism by  civil  law. 

Sunlight    is    God's    gift,     and    it    furnishes    a 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  1 99 

noble  religious  symbol,  and  every  morning  should 
bring  thoughts  of  divine  mercy  and  spiritual 
regeneration.  Jehovah  saw  the  light  that  it 
was  good;  he  covereth  him  with  light  as  with 
a  garment;  he  sendeth  out  his  light  and  his 
truth;  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  upon  the  evil  and 
the  good.  But,  after  all,  it  is  the  law  of  Jehovah 
which  is  a  light  unto  our  feet,  for  to  the  Invisible 
and  Eternal  the  physical  darkness  and  the  physical 
light  are  one.  And  we  need  a  sterner  interpreta- 
tion of  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  than  a  mere 
festival  of  light.  If  we  do  not  have  it  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  meet  philosophies  and  religions  which 
still  worship  those  other  ideas  of  sunlight — the  mili- 
tary and  the  orgiastic.  This  is  no  idle  fancy.  To- 
day in  the  universities  of  Germany  the  most  popular 
philosopher  is  Friedrich  Nietsche,  a  thinker  whose 
philosophy  is  both  military  and  orgiastic.  To  con- 
quer— like  the  sun;  to  give  free  rein  to  "nature" — 
like  the  Bacchanalian — such  is  the  perverse  but 
ancient  essence  of  Nietscheism.  He  called  his 
philosophy  the  Dionysiac  philosophy,  and  we  know 
who  Dionysus  was;  a  god  of  the  grape  and  of  the 
sun,  the  equivalent  in  Greece  of  Mithra-Anahita  in 
Pontus.  Nietsche  Is  the  philosopher  of  intellectual, 
emotional,  and  physical  unrest;  the  philosopher  of 
ruthless  liberty,  license,  disobedience  and  individual- 


200  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

ism.  He  called  Christianity  the  greatest  curse  the 
world  has  even  seen.  He  is  the  philosopher  of  the 
pagan  Sunday,  and  his  vogue  is  immense. 

Have  we  not  yielded  enough  to  MIthra  in  celebrat- 
ing Christmas  close  upon  the  birthday  of  the  Un- 
conquered  Sun?  Precious  that  time  of  gift-giving 
is,  and  to  childhood  that  much  perhaps  of  the 
world's  childhood  may  be  allowed.  But  instead 
of  pretending  that  we  know  the  month  or  day  of 
our  Lord's  birth,  let  us  tell  the  children  frankly 
that  the  day  was  first  celebrated  as  following  the 
winter  solstice,  and  that  everywhere  the  Pagans 
gave  themselves  up  to  romping,  in  anticipation 
of  springtime.  Later  they  will  learn  the  whole 
truth  about  the  "Christmas"  revels;  that  before 
Christ  they  meant  the  sacrifice  of  the  mock  king 
of  the  revels,  to  insure  the  fertility  of  the  crops; 
that  the  mock  king  ate  and  drank  and  was 
permitted  the  grossest  license,  since  tomorrow  he 
died.  Possibly  a  knowledge  of  such  facts  may  in 
time  lessen  our  doctor's  bills  after  Christmas,  and 
diminish  the  amount  of  wine  which  flows  at  the  holi- 
days. Possibly,  too,  it  may  render  our  gift-glving 
a  little  less  extravagant,  anxious,  and  material.  The 
employer  who  fully  Intends  to  underpay  his  clerk 
next  year,  but  who  sends  him  a  condescending  gift 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  20I 

at  Christmas,  may  in  time  learn  that  he  is  not  imitat- 
ing Jesus,  he  is  imitating  the  mockery  of  those  who 
crowned  him  before  they  slew  him. 

"But,"  says  Renan,  "Christianity  is  already  dead, 
for  she  has  lost  her  Sunday."  Rather  let  us  say, 
Christianity  is  in  danger,  for  she  has  lost  the  Sab- 
bath of  Jesus.  She  has  lost  the  restful  poise,  the 
calm  aim,  the  steady  effort,  the  spiritual  sabbathism 
of  the  best  Hebraic  tradition.  It  is  true  that  Puritan 
Protestantism  made  an  effort  to  recover  these  values, 
but  it  failed.  Does  that  constitute  the  permanent 
failure  of  Protestantism? 

Twenty-five  years  ago  Adolf  Harnack  said  to  the 
present  writer,  "Either  Protestantism  will  become 
more  spiritual  or  it  will  perish;  and  if  it  perishes, 
Roman  Catholicism  will  take  its  place  as  a  new  form 
of  Paganism."  Were  these  the  words  of  an  alarm- 
ist? Has  Professor  Harnack  that  reputation? 
Hardly.  He  is  an  eminent  and  moderate  historian, 
who  sees  history  as  a  whole,  and  is  therefore  granted 
a  certain  superiority  to  what  Goethe  called  the  "va- 
rious perversities  of  the  day."  He  knows  that  his- 
tory is  a  long  way  from  being  finished,  and  that 
reversion  to  type  is  a  danger  from  which  no  civiliza- 
tion is  ever  exempted. 

What  will  a  similar  historian  say  of  this  age 
two  thousand  years  from  now?     Will  it  be  his  lot 


202  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

to  record  that  the  twentieth  century,  which  opened 
with  unparalleled  brightness  for  science  and  com- 
merce, proved  to  have  attained  more  knowledge  and 
more  wealth  than  it  could  assimilate?  that  it  was 
educated  beyond  its  abilities,  and  rich  beyond  its 
power  of  moral  resistance?  Will  he  record  that,  as 
a  consequence  of  this  materialism,  Christianity,  the 
child  of  a  sternly  pure  Hebraism,  succumbed  so 
completely  that  a  new  Secularism,  a  new  Paganism, 
took  its  place? 

We  hope  that  his  task  will  be  different.  We 
hope  that  the  Harnack  of  the  fortieth  century  will 
have  nobler  things  to  record.  We  trust  that  men 
will  so  cooperate  with  God  that  they  may  attain  life 
with  him  and  in  him.  We  trust  in  God.  But  we 
do  not  trust  in  fortune  and  the  sun,  as  the  Emperors 
trusted  and  have  perished.  We  can  not  lean  upon 
the  thought  that  chance  will  bring  us  through  or 
that  holidays  can  consecrate  us.  We  can  not  get 
far  upon  the  road  to  Spiritual  Sabbathism  by  scorn- 
ing the  gentle  but  solemn  command:  "Thus  saith 
Jehovah."  But  we  can  calmly  wait  and  joyfully 
work  in  the  faith  that  even  here,  on  earth  and  in 
time,  there  remaineth  a  Sabbath  Rest  for  the  people 
of  God. 


APPENDIX:  NOTES  AND  REFERENCES. 

p.  4.  Goethe. — Elsewhere  Goethe  says  to  the  youth  of 
his  time:  "Take  with  you  this  holy  earnestness, 
for  earnestness  alone  makes  time  eternity.''' 
Boehme's  motto  was :  "He  to  whom  time  is  as 
eternity  and  eternity  as  time  is  freed  from  strug- 
gle." For  many  similar  expressions  see  Fichte, 
Reden  an  die  deutsche  Nation;  Emerson :  Essays. 

p.  4.  Heraclitus. — Our  comment  is  anticipated  by  the 
poet  Callimachus  on  Heraclitus,  in  the  Greek 
Anthology. 

p.  5.  Animism. — The  word  is  Tylor's,  and  his  Primi- 
tive Culture  is  a  good  introduction  to  the  sub- 
ject. There  is  an  excellent  article  by  dAlviella 
in  the  first  volume  (just  published,  August,  1908) 
of  the  new  Hastings  Dictionary  of  Ethics  and 
Religion.  "Momentary  gods" — Augensblick 
Gotter — is  Usener's  phrase,  in  Gotternamen: 
Versuch  einer  Lehre  von  der  religiosen  Begriffs- 
bildung. 

p.  8.  "Religion  has  had  its  turn  at  the  wheel."  The 
phrase  is  Professor  Santayana's,  and  the  fifth 
volume  of  his  Life  of  Reason  is  but  an  expansion 
of  the  thought. 

p.  9.  Reverence. — Bosanquet:  Civiliation  of  Christian- 
dom,  61. 

p.  II.  Son  of  Man. — The  school  referred  to  is  led  by 
Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt.  See  his  The 
Prophet  of  Nazareth,  ch.  v. 

203 


204  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

p,  13.  Mythology.— The  literature  is  endless.  A  good 
introduction  is  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture.  Max 
Miiller's  Science  of  Religion  and  his  Science  of 
Language  are  important,  and  so  is  Lang's  criti- 
cism of  them  in  the  Encyclopedia  Brittanica  arti- 
cle. Preller's  Greek  Mythology,  Brinton's  Myths 
of  the  New  World,  Curtin's  American  Creation- 
Myths,  Frazer's  The  Golden  Bough — ^these  will 
constitute  a  beginning. 

p.  15.  Babylonian  Creation  Tablets. — The  translation 
may  be  had  in  the  Extra  Volume  of  the  Hastings 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  under  Professor  Jas- 
trow's  article  on  Religion  of  Babylonia ;  or  in 
Kent's  Student's  Old  Testament,  vol.  i.  Ap- 
pendix. There  are  full  discussions  in  Smith's 
The  Chaldean  Account  of  Genesis,  and  Schraed- 
er's  The  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  and  the  Old 
Testament;  but  the  latest  and  best  is  King's  The 
Seven  Tablets  of  Creation. 

p.  16.  Tel  el-Armarna  Tablets. — The  text  may  be  had 
in  English,  tr.  Conder.  There  are  good  selections 
in  Harper's  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  Literature, 
and  in  Hastings  there  are  many  references  (i, 
179,  223,  227,  347,  661,  665;  ii,  554). 

p.  17.  The  slain  god,  corn  spirit,  or  wood  spirit. — Atten- 
tion was  first  drawn  to  this  subject  by  W.  Rob- 
ertson Smith,  in  his  Religion  of  the  Semites. 
Frazer's  great  work.  The  Golden  Bough,  is  de- 
voted to  it.  Frazer's  inquiry  began  with  an 
effort  to  explain  "the  golden  bough"  mentioned 
in  the  sixth  book  of  the  ^neid.  The  enter- 
prise led  him  into  an  unexplored  world.  The 
second  edition  of  his  book  in  three  volumes  ap- 
peared in  1900.  A  third  edition  will  be  broken 
into  a  series  of  volumes,  of  which  one,  Adonis, 
Attis,  and  Osiris  has  already  appeared. 


APPENDIX  205 

p.  18.     Huxley:  Collected  Essays,  ii,  358. 

p.  20.  Astrology. — J.  A.  Craig:  Astrological-astronom- 
ical Texts  (in  Delitsch  and  Haupt:  Assyriol- 
Bibliotek)  ;  Maspero:  Dawn  of  Civilisation; 
Lang:  Magic  and  Religion;  W.  Jones:  Creduli- 
ties Past  and  Present;  Eliphas  Levi:  Dogme  et 
rituel  de  la  haute  magie. 

p.  24.  Mentras. — See  Frazer:  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris, 
ch.  ix,  on  the  Doctrine  of  Lunar  Sympathy. 

p.  25,  Comte. — See  F.  Harrison:  Realities  and  Ideals, 
p.  181. 

p.  26.     Delambre:  Historic  d'Astronomie. 

p.  27.  Shahhatuni. — Meinhad:  Sabbat  nnd  Wache  im 
Alien  Testament;  Jastrow:  Religion  of  Babylonia 
and  Assyria,  p.  376ff;  Am.  Jour.  Theol.  ii,  32iff, 
332ff,  345ff;  Sayce:  Early  History  of  the  He- 
brezvs,  p.  193.  For  criticisms  of  Jastrow  and 
Sayce,  seef  Driver's  article,  Sabbath,  in  Hastings. 

p.  28.     Maspero:  Daivn  of  Civilisation,  21  off. 

p.  30.  Time  in  Zoroastrianism. — See  Art.  Ages  of  the 
World,  Diet.  Ethics  and  Religion;  Jackson: 
Zoroaster;  Geldner:  Avesta;  Hoffding:  Philoso^ 
phy  of  Religion,  52-57. 

p.  32.  Time  in  Hindu  Religions. — Art.  Ages  of  the 
World,  supra;  Deussen :  Philosophy  of  the 
Upanishads;  Rhys  Davids:  Dialogues  of  the 
Buddha;  Ribot:  The  Creative  Imagination,  207ff. 

p.  34.     Swami  Vivekananda:  Karma  Yoga,  89,  159. 

p.  36.  The  Zervanite  heresy. — Diet.  Ethics  and  Re- 
ligion, i,  207. 

p.  38.  The  contrast  in  philosophy. — Some  notion  of  how 
deceptive  the  antithesis  is  when  taken  literally 
can  be  had  from  the  inconsistencies  of  a  semi- 
philosophic  author  like  Carlyle.  Carlyle  was 
deeply  impressed  by  the  antithesis,  and  his  ref- 
erences to  it  arouse  strong  emotions.     But  where- 


206  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

as  in  one  place  he  calls  speech  "as  shallow  as 
time,"  in  another  he  makes  time  the  deepest 
of  things:  ''like  an  all  embracing  ocean  tide" 
it  flows  onward,  and  we  and  all  things  swim 
upon  it  "like  exhalations." 

p,  39.  Our  two  groups  give  some  strange  bed-fellows. 
Hodgson's  empiricism,  Russell's  realism,  Santay- 
ana's  platonic  naturalism,  Hoffding's  critical 
monism,  Ostwald's  energetics,  Haeckel's  rhetori- 
cal or  mythical  monism — have  these  systems 
really  anything  in  common?  The  differences 
are  certainly  important,  and  the  grouping  holds 
only  at  a  distance,  in  comparison  with  the  other 
group.  In  that  group  also  there  are  strange 
bedfellows.  Aristotle  is  Plato's  critic,  and 
Ramanuja  is  Shankara's.  Aquinas  and  Duns 
Scotus,  like  most  mediaeval  thinkers,  project 
their  theology  against  an  assumed  real  world. 
Among  living  writers,  the  Eucken  of  twenty 
years  ago  seems  to  belong  to  our  first  group; 
it  is  only  his  latest  book  which  shows  the  widen- 
ing breach  between  him  and  such  men  as  James 
and  Schiller.  Royce  and  Miinsterberg  hold  very 
different  views  as  to  the  nature  of  time.  We 
admit  all  these  contradictions.  Yet  we  contend 
that  if  any  line  can  throw  the  representative 
thinkers  into  two  groups,  that  which  we  have 
indicated  will  do  it. 

p.  39.  Thales,  Anaximenes,  Anaximander,  Heraclitus. — 
See  Gromperz :  Greek  Thinkers,  vol.  i.  Democri- 
tus  is  best  studied  in  the  poem  of  his  disciple 
Lucretius,  On.  the  Nature  of  Things.  Hobbes : 
De  Corpore,  vii.  That  the  skepticism  of  Hob- 
bes does  not  remove  him  from  our  first  group  ap- 
pears in  the  Leviathan,  where  he  contemptuously 
refers  to  "names  that  signify  nothing — as  Eternal 


APPENDIX  207 

Now,  and  the  like  canting  of  schoolmen,"  Am- 
pere, see  Hoffding:  Hist.  Mod.  Philos.,  ii, 
308.  C.  H.  Weisse:  see  Hoffding:  Hist.  Mod. 
Philos.,  ii,  267.  Kierkegaard:  Entzveder-Oder. 
This  is  not  Kierkegaard's  most  important  philo- 
sophical work,  but  it  shows  more  clearly  than 
any  other  his  hatred  of  abstraction.  Beneke: 
Psychologische  Skizsen;  Hoffding,  Hist.  Mod. 
Philos.,  ii,  259ff.  Diihring:  Wirklichkeitsphiloso- 
phie.  Ostwald:  Naturphilosophie ;  Individual- 
ity and  Immortality.  Haeckel:  The  Riddle  of 
the  Universe,  ch.  xii.  Hoffding:  The  Problems 
of  Philosophy,  ch.  ii,  ch.  iii,  5 ;  A  Philosophical 
Confession,  Journal  of  Philosphy,  ii,  4.  Bergson: 
Essai  sur  les  donnees  immediates  de  la  conscience, 
ch.  ii;  Matiere  et  m,emoire,  268ff;  L' evolution 
creatrice,  chs.  iii,  iv.  James :  The  Will  to  Be- 
lieve, 181 ;  Introduction  to  Hoffding's  Problems 
of  Philosophy;  Pragmatism.  Dewey:  Studies  in 
Logical  Theory;  Does  Reality  Possess  Practical 
Character  (in  Essays  in  honor  of  William 
James).  B.  Russell:  Principles  of  Mathematics, 
vol.  i,  chs.  Hi,  liii.  Hodgson:  Time  and  Space. 
Schiller:  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,  ch.  ix;  Human- 
ism, 94-109,  189,  212,  275  ;  Studies  in  Humanism, 
28,  73,  422.  Sturt:  Idola  Theatri,  34,  94,  95, 
231,  237-40,  325.  To  the  authors  above  we 
may  add  Santayana,  The  Life  of  Reason,  esp. 
vol.  V,  Reason  in  Science. 

p.  39.  Parmenides,  Zcno  of  Elea,  Melissus. — See  Gom- 
perz:  Greek  Thinkers,  vol.  i.  Plato:  Timaeus 
37c-38d ;  Sophist,  248e ;  Cratylus,  389c.  Aris- 
totle: Physica,  iv,  Metaphysica,  V,  vii.  Shan- 
kara  and  Ramanuja:  see  Deussen:  Philosophy 
of  the  Upanishads;  art.  Oriental  Philosophy,  in 
(Baldwin)     Dictionary    of    Philosphy;    Sacred 


208  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Books  of  the  East,  vol.  48.  Aquinas:  Summa 
Theologiae,  i,  10.  Duns  Scotus:  See  Town- 
send:  The  Great  Schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Eckhardt  and  Boehme:  see  Preyer:  Geschichte 
der  dcutschen  Mystik ;  Martensen:  Meister  Eck- 
hart;  Fechner:  /.  Boehme.  Spinoza,  Ethica 
V;  Pollock's  Spinosa;  Kant:  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,  Transcendental  Alsthetic,  sec.  ii ;  Trans- 
cendental Dialectic,  ch.  ii,  sec.  iii.  The  literature 
concerning  Kant's  doctrine  of  time  and  space 
is  too  vast  to  make  references  here  worth  while. 
Fichte:  Science  of  Knowledge.  Hegel:  Logic 
(from  the  Encyclopedia).  Bradley:  Appear- 
ance and  Reality,  ch.  iv.  Bosanquet:  Logic,  i, 
273fif.  McTaggart:  Studies  in  the  Hegelian 
Dialectic,  ch.  v;  The  Unreality  of  Time,  "Mind," 
n.  s.  no.  68.  Eucken:  The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  ch. 
ii;  Der  Kampf  nni  einen  geistigen  Lehensinhalt, 
Der  Wahrheitsinhalt  der  Religion,  v.  Miinster- 
berg:  Grundziige  der  Psychologic  i,  131 ;  The 
Eternal  Life ;  Science  and  Idealism;  Philosophic 
der  Werte,  158,  182,  434,  458,  474.  Royce:  The 
World  and  the  Individual,  esp.  vol.  ii,  lecture  3. 
E.  Caird:  The  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the 
Greek  Philosophers.  [Professor  Caird  died 
Nov.  I,  1908,  two  days  before  the  death  of  the 
author  of  this  book. — Editor.]  /.  Watson:  The 
Philosophical  Basis  of  Religion:  60,  79,  128,  212, 
339.  A.  E.  Taylor:  Elements  of  Metaphysics, 
books  iii,  iv.  Ormond:  Concepts  of  Philosophy, 
ch.  viii. 

p.  40.  Augustine:  Confessions,  xi;  Civitas  Dei,  xi, 
NcTvton:  Principia,  v,  i ;  Opticks,  Query  31. 
Leibnitz:  New  Essays;  Theodicy;  Russell:  Leib- 
nitz. Lotzc:  see  the  note  in  Hofifding:  Hist. 
Mod.  Philos.,  ii,  592,  and  the  references  to  Fal- 
(14) 


APPENDIX  209 

conberg's  articles;  see  also  Baldwin:  Fragments 
in  Philosophy  and  Science,  63;  and  Schiller: 
Lotse's  Monism,  in  "Humanism."  On  this 
matter  of  internal  contradiction,  note  Eucken's 
remark  on  Spinoza  himself :  "There  is  no 
philosopher  who,  in  the  fundamental  texture  of 
his  system,  is  so  compound  of  contradictions  as 
the  thinker  who  is  praised  by  many  as  the  su- 
preme example  of  the  quest  for  unity"  (Life  of 
the  Spirit,  313).  Then  note  that  Eucken  in  turn 
receives  a  similar  criticism  from  his  expositor, 
Boyce  Gibson  (Rudolf  Eucken's  Philosophy  of 
Life,  sec.  ed.,  147)  ;  the  critic  wishes  that 
"Eucken's  sharp  contrast  between  psychical  ex- 
istence in  time  and  substantial  spiritual  being 
out  of  time"  might  be  modified.  When  we  read 
such  comments  as  these,  we  can  understand  why 
Hegel's  philosophy  of  contradiction  still  keeps 
its  hold  on  so  many  thinkers. 

p.  41.     Hofifding:  The  Problems  of  Philosophy. 

p.  42.  Heraclitus,  Plato,  Aristotle — see  references 
above.    Add  Aristotle:  De  Caelo,  i,  10,  279b,  12. 

p.  43.  Plotinus:  Enneads,  iii,  7,  11.  Augustine:  Con- 
fessions, vii.  For  Neoplatonism  in  general,  see 
Zeller:  Philosophy  of  the  Greeks;  Harnack:  The 
First  Three  Centuries  of  Christianity;  Ritschl: 
Theologie  und  Metaphysik;  Bigg:  The  Neopla- 
tonists  of  Alexandria. 

p.  43.     Augustine:   Confessions,  xi,  xiv,  17. 

p.  44.  Descartes:  Principia,  i,  57,  See  Veitch's  tranS' 
lation  of  the  Discourse  on  Method,  etc. 

p.  44.     Spinoza,   Hobbes. — See  references  above. 

p.  44.  Locke:  Essay  concerning  Human  Understand- 
ing, ii,  14. 

p.  44.  Hume:  Inquiry  concerning  Human  Understand- 
ing, sec.  vii. 


210  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

p.  45.     Kant. — See  references  above. 

p.  45.  Agnosticism. — Huxley:  Collected  Essays,  v,  239. 
Stephen:  An  Agnostic's  Apology.  Ward:  Nat- 
uralism and  Agnosticism.  Spencer :  First  Prin- 
ciples. The  quotation  from  Russell  is  from  Prin- 
ciples of  Mathematics,  i,  144. 

p.  47.     Fichte  and  Hegel. — See  references  above. 

p.  48.  Brsidley:  Appearances  and  Reality.  The  phrase 
"higher  synthesis  of  the  Devil  and  the  Deity" 
is  quoted  in  Schiller :  Humanism,  p.  viii. 

p.  49.  Royce:  The  World  and  the  Individual.  "Time- 
span"  is  Royce's  phrase  (i,  421).  "Specious 
present"  is  Mr.  E.  R,  Clay's,  made  current  by 
James:    Psychology,  i,  609. 

p,  50.  Miinsterberg. — See  references  above,  especially 
Philosophic  der  Werte,  pub.  by  Barth,  Liepzig, 
1908.  Our  summary  is  from  this  book,  the  first 
quotation  being  from  p.  300,  the  second  from 
p.  304.  [Since  this  was  written  an  English 
version,  "The  Eternal  Values,"  has  appeared. 
— Editor.] 

p.  53.  "Gaseous  vertebrate."  The  phrase  is  Haeckel's 
and  is  characteristic.  The  best  of  the  many 
replies  to  Haeckel's  World  Riddle  is  Paulsen's 
Philosophia  Militans. 

p.  53.  Naturalism. — Ostwald's  Naturphilosophie  may  be 
taken  as  typical.  The  technical  literature  of 
philosophic  naturalism  is  not  large.  Popular 
authors  like  Buchner  (Force  and  Matter)  have 
been  the  freest  to  make  sweeping  assertions.  But 
the  atmosphere  of  naturalism  is  everywhere  to- 
day, in  scientific  work,  Balfour's  graphic  pic- 
ture (Foundations  of  Belief,  30J  is  rejected  by 
some  scientists  as  a  caricature.  The  really  dam- 
aging work  of  naturalism  is  such  by  its  implica- 
tion.     The  brief  philosophic  remarks  of  a  Loeb 


APPENDIX  211 

(Dynamics  of  Living  Matter,  p.  225J  are  more 
weighty  than  many  books  like  Buchner's.  For 
an  interesting  attempt  to  take  Loeb's  "tropisms" 
by  the  horns,  see  Royce:  Outlines  of  Psychology, 
29,  30,  141,  322,  330,  331.  An  impartial  view  of 
naturalism  may  be  found  in  Otto :  Naturalism  and 
Religion,  and  a  somewhat  less  impartial  view  in 
Ward:  Naturalism  and  Agnosticistn. 

p.  54.     Mill:  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  314. 

p.  54.  James:  Pragmatism,  290;  The  Will  to  Believe — 
chapter  on  Reflex  Action  and  Theism;  The  Va- 
rites  of  Religious  Experience,  525. 

p.  54.     Schiller:  Studies  in  Humanism,  286. 

p.  54.  Rashdall :  Personality  Human  and  Divine,  in  the 
vol.  Personal  Idealism,  390. 

p.  54.     Hoffding:  Problems  of  Philosophy,   107. 

p.  55.  Bergson:  Les  donnees  immediates  de  la  consci- 
ence; Matiere  et  memoire;  L' evolution  creatrice. 
The  quotation  is  from  the  last-named,  p.  151. 
"En  definitive,  I'intelligence,  envisagee  dans  ce 
qui  en  parait  etre  la  demarche  originelle,  est  la 
faculte  de  fabriquer  des  objets  artificiels,  en  par- 
ticulier  des  outils  a  faire  des  outils,  et  d'  en  varier 
indefinement  la  fabrication." 

p.  56.  Le  Roy:  Comment  se  pose  le  probleme  de  Dieu. 
— Rev.  de  Metaphysiqiie  et  de  Morale,  1907, 
March,  April,  May. 

p.  56.  God  as  "the  most  changeable  of  beings" — see 
Hoffding,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  393.  "What 
is  dead,  that  is  what  is  unchangeable.  The  Chris- 
tian's God  is  the  most  living  and  hence  the  most 
changeable  of  beings." — From  a  letter  to  Winze- 
man,  Jacobi's  orthodox  friend,  by  a  fellow- 
believer,  on  the  possibility  of  receiving  an  answer 
to  prayer. 

p.  58.  Mansel:  The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought. 
Spencer:    First  Principles:    The  Unknozmble. 


212  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

p.  58.  Benn:  The  History  of  English  Rationalism  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  i,  112. 

p.  58.  Behring  and  Kitasuto  on  their  discovery  of  diph- 
theria anti-toxin:  Deut.  Med.  Wochenschrift, 
1890,  16. 

p.  61.     Huxley:  Collected  Essays,  v.  315. 

p.  75.     Santayana:  Reason  in  Religion,  p.   117. 

p.  76.  "Omphalos,"  etc.  See  Edmund  Gosse:  Father 
and  Son,  p.  iisfif.  Benn:  History  of  English 
Rationalism  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  i,  iQQff, 
37off,  ii,  474ff.  Chateaubriand :  Genius  of  Chris- 
tianity, Pt,  i,  ch.  iv,  sec,  5;  Lyell:  Antiquity  of 
Man;  Principles  of  Geology.  Chambers :  Vest- 
iges of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation.  Baden 
Powell:  Unity  of  Worlds;  Christianity  without 
Judaism.  Colenso:  Critical  Examination  of  the 
Pentateuch.  Reville:  Prolegomena  to  the  His- 
tory of  Religions;  Dana :  Manual  of  Geology. 
Huxley:  Lectures  on  Evolution.  Gladstone, 
Huxley,  Miiller,  Reville,  Lynton:  The  Order  of 
Creation:  a  controversy.  Myron  Adams:  The 
Continuous  Creation.  Chamberlin  and  Salis- 
bury: Geology.  J.  A.  Thomson:  The  Bible  of 
Nature.     F.  J.  Hall :  Evolution  and  Fall. 

p.  84,     Hoffding:  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  66. 

p.  85.  Goethe — All  the  quotations  are  from  the  Spriiche 
in  Prosa,  translated  as  Maxims  and  Aphorisms, 

p.  87.     Plato:  Sophist,  248e. 

p.  87.  Aristotle:  De  Anima,  ii,  5,  417a,  16.  See  Schil- 
ler's chapter  on  Activity  and  Substance,  in  Hu- 
manism;  and  Overstreet:  Change  and  the  Change- 
less, Philos.  Rev.,  xviii,    i.       The    Aristotelian 

phrase   is    'Evepyeta   'AKLvr](TLa^. 

p,  88.  Schiller :  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,  443  ;  Humanism, 
212. 


APPENDIX  213 

p.  99.  Aristotle :  Phys.  ii,  3,  194,  b.  23  :  Iva  fih  ovv  rpoTrov 
aXriov  Aeyerat  to  €$  ov  ytverai  Tt  en;7rap;(OVT09  .  .  . 
aAAov  Se  to  ctSos  koI  to  TrapaSety/xa  ...  In  oufv 
rj  apyji  t^s  fi€TaPo\ij<5  17  TrputTrj  ^  Trj'5  7}p€fir]cr€oi^  .  .  . 
In  a>s  TO  TcAos  tovto  8*  cau  to  ov  evaca. 

The  most  brilliant  use  of  this  distinction  is 
that  contained  in  Howison's  Limits  of  Evolution, 
ch.  vii — on  the  harmony  between  determinism 
and  free  will.  But  Professor  Howison  must  be 
aware  that  it  was  made  much  of  by  the  Anti- 
ochene  Fathers.  They  used  it  in  their  polemics 
against  the  extreme  allegorizing  tendencies  of  the 
Alexandrians.  That  great  theologian,  Theodore 
of  Mopsuestia,  grappled  with  the  relation  of  crea- 
tion to  human  freedom  in  profoundly  psycho- 
logical spirit,  and  found  the  solution  in  the  crea- 
tive power  of  love  (De  Incarn.,  Migne,  Ixvi). 
This  position  leads  to  a  full  appreciation  of  his- 
tory as  a  creative  process,  and  is  nobly  teleolo- 
gical.  Theodore's  critics  complained  that  it  mini- 
mized the  facts  of  sin  ;  but  creative  salvation  from 
sin  is  precisely  the  core  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 
There  is  a  true  sense  in  which  the  creation  of  the 
world  itself  is  an  act  of  self-sacrifice  on  the 
part  of  God. 

p,  105.  Miinsterberg :  Philosophie  der  Werte,  414. 

p.  Ill,  The  tractate  Shabbath  occupies  the  first  two  vol- 
umes of  Rodkinson's  translation  of  the  Baby- 
lonian Talmud.  There  are  full  abstracts  of  it 
in  Edersheim's  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Mes- 
siah, and  in  my  Biblical  Teachings  concerning 
Sabbath  and  Sunday. 

p.  120.  The  passage  referred  to  is  Matt,  xxviii,  i,  where 
an  earlier  visit  to  the  tomb  is  indicated:  "Now 
late  on  the  Sabbath  day,  as  it  began  to  dawn 
toward  the  first  day  of  the  week,  came  Mary 


214  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary  to  see  the  sepul- 
chre." Matthew,  a  Jew,  could  not  possibly  have 
regarded  the  Sabbath  as  lasting  later  than  sun- 
set much  less  as  lasting  till  Sunday  at  dawn.  The 
passage  should  be  read  in  the  light  of  Matt,  xii, 
40,  where  the  prophecy  distinctly  states  three  days 
and  three  nights,  a  prophecy  which  could  not  have 
been  fulfilled  if  Christ  was  crucified  on  Friday. 

p.  123.  Pontus. — Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan  (112)  reports 
that  the  native  shrines  are  almost  deserted,  and 
that  Christianity  is  of  long  standing;  some  con 
verts  of  twenty  years  ago  have  deserted  it.  This 
clearly  shows  that,  though  Paul  and  Silas  had 
been  diverted  from  their  desire  to  visit  Asia 
(Acts  xvi,  6)  the  Gospel  had  made  its  way  into 
Eastern  Pontus  by  the  middle  of  the  first  century. 
The  matter  is  well  discussed  in  Ramsay's  article 
on  Pontus,  in  Hastings,  iv,  17-18. 

p.  123.  The  Sacaea. — See  Frazer:  Golden  Bough,  sec. 
ed.,  ii,  24,  151,  157,  176,  178;  iii,  isoflf. 

p.  123  Anahita. — See  Ency.  of  Ethics  and  Religion, 
vol.  i. 

p.  123.  Frazer:  Golden  Bough,  sec.  ed.,  ii,  195-198. 

p.  127.  Harnack:  Expansion  of  Christianity  in  the  First 
Three  Centuries,  i,  I27ff;  History  of  Dogma,  i, 
118,  147. 

p.  127,  See  Origen:  Ante-Nicene  Library:  Against 
Celsus,  III,  xxiv. 

p.  127.  Appolonius  of  Tyana. — See  art.  in  Ency.  of 
Ethics  and  Religion;  Reville :  Appolonius  of  Ty- 
ana; Robertson:  Pagan  Christs;  Whittaker:  Ap- 
polonius of  Tyana. 

p.  128.  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos. — See  art.  in  Ency. 
of  Ethics  and  Religion;  Lucian :  Alexander; 
Gregorovius:  Hadrian,  ii,  ch.  15. 

p.  128.  Elagabalus. — See  Gibbon's  Rome,  \,  ch.  6. 


APPENDIX  215 

p.  129.  Cumont:  Textes  et  monuments  figures  relatifs 
aux  mysteres  de  Mithra,  Bruxelle,  1896,  i,  299, 
342,  etc.  See  also  McCormack:  The  Mysteries 
of  Mithra,  tr,  from  Cumont's  "Conclusions" 
to  vol.  i,  especially  pp.  104,  167,  191.  See 
also  Bigg:  The  Church's  Task  under  the  Em- 
pire, p.  47,  In  Cumont,  ii,  425,  there  is  an 
account  of  a  flat  hoop  of  gold  on  which  are  the 
names  of  Zeus  and  Mithra,  a  snake,  and  the 
monogram  of  Christ.  St.  Augustine  once  met  a 
Mithraic  priest  who  said  to  him :  Et  ipse  Pileatus 
Christianus  est — "He  of  the  Phrygian  cap  is 
also  a  Christian."  In  I  oh.  evan.  tract.  7,  p. 
1 140,  Migne. 

p.  135.  Gnosticism. — Mansel:  Gnostic  Heresies;  Hilgen- 
feld :  Ketz^r  geschichte  des  Urchristentums; 
King:  The  Gnostics  and  their  Remains;  Har- 
nack :  History  of  Dogma,  vols,  i  and  ii. 

p.  136.  Kabbalists. — Ginsburg:  The  Kahhala;  Eliphas 
Levi :  Transcendental  Magic. 

p.  138.  Simon  Magus. — See  Hastings,  iv,  520,  527. 

p.  139.  Cerinthus. — See  works  above  quoted,  and  art.  in 
Ency.  Brit. 

p.  137.  Valentinus. — See  works  above  quoted,  and  Har- 
nack's  article  in  Ency.  Brit. 

p.  142.  The  Pistis  Sophia  may  now  be  had  in  English, 
tr.  Mead,  published  by  the  London  Theosophical 
Society. 

p.  143.  Uhlhorn:  Conflict  of  Christianity  with  Heathen- 
ism, p.  346. 

p.  144.  Marcion. — See  Harnack's  art.  in  Ency.  Brit.,  to- 
gether with  references  there  given.  Tertullian, 
Against  Marcion,  may  be  found  in  the  Ante- 
Nicene  Library. 

p.  145.  Sunday — the  first  day  of  the  week — is  mentioned 


2l6  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

in  the  New  Testament  eig-ht  times.  Six  of  these 
times  are  in  the  Gospels,  and  all  refer  to  the  same 
day.  These  references  are  as  follows  (Revised 
Version)  : 

"Now  late  on  the  sabbath  day  as  it  began  to 
dawn  toward  the  first  day  of  the  week,  came 
Mary  Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary  to  see  the 
sepulchre."      Matt,  xxviii,  i. 

"And  when  the  sabbath  was  past,  Mary  Mag- 
d/alene,  and  Mary  the  mother  of  James  and  Sa- 
lome, bought  spices  that  they  might  come  and 
anoint  him.  And  very  early  on  the  first  day  of 
the  week  they  came  to  the  tomb,  when  the  sun 
was  risen,"     Mark  xvi,  i,  2. 

The  day  is  also  named  in  Mark  xvi,  9,  which 
is  an  addition  to  the  genuine^  Gospel.  Neverthe- 
less we  count  it  as  one  of  the  eight  times. 

"And  on  the  sabbath  they  rested  according  to 
the  commandment.  But  on  the  first  day  of  the 
week  at  early  dawn  they  came  unto  the  tomb, 
bringing  the  spices  which  they  had  prepared." 
Luke  xxiv,  i, 

"The  first  day  of  the  week  cometh  Mary  Mag- 
dalene early,  when  it  was  yet  dark  and  seeth  the 
stone  taken  away  from  the  tomb."     John  xx,  i. 

"When  therefore  it  was  evening  on  that  day, 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  when  the  doors 
were  shut  where  the  disciples  were,  for  fear  of 
the  Jews,  Jesus  came  and  stood  in  the  midst, 
and  saith  unto  them,  Peace  be  unto  you."  John 
XX,  19, 

All  these  references  are  to  one  and  the  same 
day.  They  show  that  on  that  day  the  news  of 
Christ's  resurrection  was  brought  to  the  dis- 
ciples.     They  show  nothing  more. 


APPENDIX  217 

They  do  not  state  that  Christ  rose  on  that  day ; 
even  the  added  passage,  Mark  xvi,  9,  only  states 
that  Christ,  being-  risen,  appeared  on  Sunday 
morning.  On  the  contrary,  Matthew  xxviii,  1-6, 
states  definitely  that  when  the  first  visit  to  the  sep- 
ulchre was  made  "late  on  the  sabbath  day,"  Christ 
h<id  risen  already.  This  accords  with  the  pro- 
phetic test  of  his  Messiahship,  which  Christ  made 
in  Matt,  xii,  40. 

The  Bible  never  associates  Christ's  resurrection 
with  the  observance  of  any  day.  It  says  nothing 
about  commemorating  the  work  of  redemption  by 
observing  any  day.  It  makes  no  comparison  be- 
tween the  "work  of  Redemption  and  the  work  of 
Creation,"  as  to  which  is  the  greater  or  more 
important. 

The  first  day  of  the  week  is  mentioned  once  in 
the  Book  of  Acts. 

"And  we  sailed  away  from  Philippi  after  the 
days  of  unleavened  bread,  and  came  unto  them 
to  Troas  in  five  days ;  where  we  abode  seven 
days.  And  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week,  when 
the  disciples  came  together  to  break  bread,  Paul 
preached  unto  them,  ready  to  depart  on  the  mor- 
row ;  and  continued  his  speech  until  midnight.'' 
Acts  XX,  6,  7. 

The  popular  supposition  is  that  this  meeting 
was  held  on  Sunday  evening,  and  that  the  break- 
ing of  bread  was  a  "celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper."  There  are  imperative  reasons  for  re- 
jecting both  these  interpretations.  According  to 
the  Jewish  method  of  reckoning  time,  which  is 
everywhere  used  by  writers  of  the  Bible,  all  of 
whom  were  Jews,  this  meeting  must  have  been 
on  the  evening  after  the  Sabbath,  now  called 
"Saturday"  evening,  and  hence    Paul    and    his 


21  8  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

companions  traveled  all  the  next  day,  If,  to 
avoid  this  dilemma,  the  Roman  reckoning  be  sup- 
posed, then  the  main  item  of  the  meeting,  vis., 
the  "breaking  of  bread,"  took  place  after  mid- 
night, and  hence  on  the  second  day  of  the  week. 

The  time  when  this  meeting  was  held  is  thus 
given  by  Conybeare  and  Howson:  Life  of 
St.  Paul. 

In  all  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  there 
is  but  one/  mention  of  Sunday.  "Now  concern- 
ing the  collection  for  the  saints,  as  I  gave  order 
to  the  churches  of  Galatia,  so  also  do  ye.  Upon 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  let  each  one  of  you  lay 
by  him  in  store  as  he  may  prosper,  that  no  col- 
lections be  made  when  I  come?."     i  Cor.  xvi,  i,  2. 

This  is  claimed  by  some  as  an  order  for  a 
public  collection  and  hence  indicative  of  a  pub- 
lic meeting  on  that  day.  There  is  abundant 
evidence  to  the  contrary  from  scholars  of  repute. 
Meyer  says.  Trap'  iavrw  Ti.6eT(o  can  not  refer  to  the 
laying  down  of  money  in  the  assembly.  His 
translation  is,  "Let  him  lay  up  in  store  at  home 
whatever  he  succeeds  in,"  i.  e.,  if  he  has  success 
in  anything,  let  him  lay  it  up,  i.  e.,  "what  he  has 
gained  thereby,  in  order  that  gatherings  be  not 
made  when  I  shall  come."  Comments  on  i  Cor. 
xvi,  I. 

No  translation  has  been  made,  or  can  be  made, 
which  indicates  this  as  a  public  collection. 

And  this  is  all  the  New  Testament  says  about 
Sunday. 

p.  145.  The  Lord's  Day  in  the  New  Testament. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  direct  references 
to  Sunday,  it  is  claimed  that  Revelation  i,  10 
refers  to  Sunday  as  the  Lord's  day  in  the  follow- 
ing words: 


APPENDIX  219 

"I  was  in  the  spirit  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  I 
heard  behind  me  a  great  voice,  as  of  a  trumpet 
saying.  What  thou  seest,  write  in  a  book,  and 
send  it  to  the  seven  churches." 

If  this  passage  be  compared  with  similar  pas- 
sages, it  is  clear  that  the  reference  is  not  to 
any  day  of  the  week,  but  to  the  future  Day  of 
Judgment,  which  is  the  leading  theme  in  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  Ten  other  references 
to  the  Day  of  Judgment  as  the  Day  of  the 
Lord,  are  found  in  Acts  ii,  20;  i  Cor.  i,  8;  v. 
5;  2  Cor.  i,  14;  Philip,  i,  6,  10;  2  Pet.  iii,  10,  li, 
12;  these  references  are  quite  unmistakable,  and 
are  disputed  by  no  scholar  whatsoever.  Inter- 
preted by  such  passages.  Rev.  i,  10,  obviously 
becomes  a  record  of  a  past  spiritual  vision  of 
a  final  future  event.  In  Rev.  iv,  i,  2,  we  have 
the  actual  process  of  John's  passing  into  the 
spirit  on  the  Judgment  Day  described: 

"After  these  things  I  saw,  and  behold,  a  door 
opened  in  heaven,  and  the  first  voice  that  I 
heard,  a  voice  as  of  a  trumpet  speaking  with  me, 
one  saying.  Come  up  hither,  and  I  will  show  thee 
the  things  which  must  come  to  pass  hereafter. 
Straightway  I  was  in  the  Spirit;  and  behold, 
there  was  a  throne  set  in  heaven,  and  one  sitting 
upon  the  throne." 

The  likelihood  that  the  Book  of  Revelation  was 
written  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier 
than  the  Gospel  of  John,  and  that  in  the  Gospel 
the  first  day  of  the  week  is  known  by  its  proper 
name,  and  not  as  the  Lord's  day,  is  another  evi- 
dence that  the  reference  in  Revelation  is  to  the 
Day  of  Judgment.  It  is  certain  that  the  first 
day  of  the  week  as  a  Sabbath,  or  a  day  of  rest 
and  worship,  or  as  a  day  commemorating  the  res- 


2^0  SPIRITUAL  SABBATHISM 

urrection  of  Christ,  has  no  history  in  the  New 
Testament. 

p.  146.  Hamack:  Art.  Marcion,  Ency.  Brit.  Cf.  His- 
tory of  Dogma  i,  chs.  4,  5. 

p.  150.  Harnack:  History  of  Dogma,  i,  119,  comments 
on  Justin's  use  of  the  Stoic  phrases. 

p.  150.  Justin  Martyr:  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  chs.  12 
and  23. 

p.  151.  TertulHan:  Answer  to  Jezvs,  ch.  \v;Apol.  ch.  xvi, 
p.  152.  Bryennios. — See  Grosvenor's  article:  Bryen- 
nios  on  the  Teaching,  Independent,  Oct.  15,  1884, 
and  Bryennios:  AtSax^  k.  t.  A.  Bartlet's  article 
in  Hastings,  Extra  Vol.,  p.  450,  gives  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Didache. 

p.  153.  Oxyrhynicus  Papyri. — The  text  has  been  pub- 
lished by  the  discoverers,  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  the 
last  volume  having  just  appeared  (1908).  The 
logoi  are  in  the  first  volume  (1898).  [We  ac- 
cept logoi  rather  than  logia,  following  Bacon's 
suggestion  in  Hastings :  Diet,  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles,  art.  logia.]  G.  and  H.  regard  the  logoi 
as  earlier  than  140,  and  are  supported  by  such 
men  as  Swete,  Rendel  Harris,  Heinrici,  and 
Lock.  Harris  (in  Hastings:  Diet,  of  Bible,  art. 
Agrapha)  inclines  to  accept  the  genuineness  of 
the  saying  we  have  quoted. 

p.  154.  Uhlhom:  ConMct  betzveen  Christianity  and  Hea- 
thenism, p.  427. 

p.  154.  Milman:  Historical  Commentaries,  b.  iv,  ch.  iv. 

p.  154.  Schaff:  Church  History,  iii,   13-19. 

p.  153.  Cod.  Justin,  III,  Tit.  12,  L.  3.  "Let  all  judges 
and  all  city  people  and  all  tradesmen  rest  upon 
the  venerable  day  of  the  sun.  But  let  those 
dwelling  in  the  country  freely  and  with  full  lib- 
erty attend  to  the  culture  of  their  fields ;  since  it 
frequently  happens  that  no  other  day  is  so  fit 


APPENDIX  221 

for  the  sowing  of  grain  or  the  planting  of  vines ; 
hence  the  favorable  time  should  not  be  allowed 
to  pass,  lest  the  provisions  of  heaven  be  lost." 

p.  155.  Constantine's  labarum  or  cross. — See  my  Pagan~ 
ism  Surviving  in  Christianity,  pp.  239,  244,  245, 
246.  Also  Eliphas  Levi  (A.  Constant) :  Trans- 
cendental Magic,  p.  300. 

p.  155.  Constantine  and  the  Sunday  market. — See 
Gruter's  Inscriptiones,  clxiv,  2,  and  Cox:  Sah- 
bath  Literature,  i,  359. 

p.  158.  A.  V.  G.  Allen:   Christian  Institutions,  p.  466. 

p.  158.  Apostolic  Constitutions. — See  Ante-Nicene  Li- 
brary, xviii,  65,  66,  87,  88,  138,  143,  186,  196, 
197,  265,  266. 

p.  159,  TertuUian:  On  Idolatry,  ch.  iv,  Ante-Nicene  Li- 
brary, xi,  162. 

p.  159.  Alzog:  Universal  Church  History,  i,  307. 

p.  160.  Binius:  Councils:  Orleans,  xi,  496;  Macon,  xiii, 
75;  Mayence,  xx,  357;  Rheims,  xx,  368;  Sois- 
sons  (and  Nicholas  to  the  Burgundians)  xxii, 
453,  454,  459.  For  the  inissi  doniinici,  or  Sun- 
day police,  see  Neale:  Feasts  and  Fasts,  p.  98, 
where  it  is  said  that  the  yoking  of  oxen  was 
punished  by  confiscation  of  one  ox.  The  full 
text  of  the  Saxon  and  English  legislation  will  be 
found  in  my  History  of  Sunday  Legislation. 

p.  161.  The  full  text  of  the  Eustace  forgery,  and  the 
narrative  of  the  ensuing  miracles,  may  be  found 
in  Hovendon's  Annals,  ii,  188-192,  526-528. 

p.  163,  The  refonns  of  St.  Margaret. — See  Skene: 
Celtic  Scotland,  b.  ii,  ch.  8. 

p.  165.  Luther:  The  Larger  Catechism.  See  also  Hes- 
sey:  Sunday,  pp.  167,  351. 

p.  166.  Augsburg  Confession,  art.  28. 

p.  167.  Calvin:  Institutes,  i,  b.  ii,  ch.  8;  Commentaries 
(Galatians   iv,    10)    tr.    Pringle.      Sermons,    tr. 


222  SPIRITUAL  SABBATISM 

Golding,  p.  204.  For  the  bowling  tradition,  see 
Hopkins:  History  of  the  Puritans,  iii,  586,  Dis- 
raeli: Charles  the  First,  ii,  16;  Hessey:  Sunday, 
p.  366. 

p.  168.  The  Works  of  Tyndale  and  Fryth,  ii,  loi.  Fryth: 
Declaration  of  Baptism,  p.  96. 

p.  169.  Cranmer:  Miscellaneous  Writings  (Cambridge, 
1846)  p.  60. 

p.  169.  Injunctions  of  Edward  VI. — See  Heylyn:  His- 
tory of  the  Sabbath,  Pt.  ii,  ch.  viii,  sec.  2. 

p.  169.  Green:  History  of  the  English  People,  b.  vi, 
ch.  I. 

p.  171.  Elizabeth. — See  Hessey:  Sunday,  p.  201;  Hop- 
kins: History  of  the  Puritans,  i,  176. 

p.  171.  Neale:  History  of  the  Puritans,  i,  176. 

p.  172.  Hessey:  Sunday,  p.  218. 

p.  173.  Bownde. — ^We  know  of  only  one  copy  of  the  first 
edition  of  Bownde's  Doctrine  now  in  this  country. 
It  is  in  the  library  of  Alfred  University,  Alfred, 
N.  Y. 

p.  175.  Bownde:  Doctrine,  pp.  5,  6,  9,  30,  31,  33,  35. 

p.  176.  For  the  Puritan  statutes  see  Neale:  History  of 
the  Puritans. 

p.  177.  Cairne. — Hessey:  Sunday,  p.  216. 

p.  177.  Plymouth  Col.  Rcc.  xi,  100,  214;  Mass,  Col.  Rec. 
i'  395;  ii>  93  J  V,  155,  239;  New  Haven  Col.  and 
Plant.  Rec,  pp.  358,  605 ;  Col.  Rec.  of  Conn., 
prior  to  1665,  p.  247. 

p.  181.  The  case  of  the  Jewish  peddler  was  recorded  by 
Dr.  H.  L.  Wayland,  in  the  National  Baptist,  Jan. 
25,  1894. 

p.  182.  William  Cleaver  Wilkinson,  D.  D.,  in  the  Chris- 
tian Advocate,  1885. 

p.  183.  The  Desplaines  Camp  Meetings. — Interior,  July 
6,  1893. 


APPENDIX.  223 

p.  183.  Leonard   Woolsey   Bacon,   D.   D. :    History    of 

American  Christianity,  p.  37iff. 
p.  184.  Secretary  Hathaway,  in  the  Intelligencer,  Dec. 

8,  1897. 
p.  184.  S.  D.   McConnell,  D.  D.,  in  the  Outlook,  Jan. 

15,  1898. 
p.  185.  Catholic  Mirror,  Sept.  9,  Sept.  30,  1893. 
p.  186.  Catholic  Mirror,  Nov.  3,  1895. 
p.  187.  A  large  number  of  testimonies   similar   to  the 

foregoing  may  be  examined  in  my  book,  Szmft 

Decadence  of  Sunday. 
p.  199.  Nietsche:  The  Dawn  of  Day;  The  Genealogy  of 

Morals;  Beyond  Good  and  Evil;  The  Antichrist. 


Bible  Studies 
on  the  Sabbath  Q^^^stion 


BY 


ARTHUR  E.  MAIN,  D.  D. 

Dean    of    Alfred    Theological    Seminary. 


Price,  postpaid,  cloth.  Twenty-five  cents. 


Address     Alfred     Theological     Seminary,    Alfred,     N.    Y. 


This  volume  presents  in  small  space  references  to  all  bibli- 
cal passages  concerning  the  Sabbath  and  the  Sunday,  together 
with  comments  by  the  author  and  other  modern  scholars.  The 
material  is  grouped  organically  in  forty-three  studies.  The  tone 
of  the  book  is  scholarly,  modern,  and  devout.  In  his  preface 
the  author  says,  "Industrial  progress  and  new  social  conditions 
must  be  reckoned  with  by  us  who  believe  in  the  final  triumph 
of  the  religion  and  morals  of  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  .  .  The  right  of  the  Bible  to  the  results  of  a  critical,  scien- 
tific, historical,  and  literary  investigation  of  its  claims  is  recogniz- 
ed as  never  before.  .  .  The  historical  spirit  views  the  world 
of  men  and  events  as  a  great  whole,  to  be  studied  according  to 
the  principles  of  development.  .  ,  Men  will  not  believe  in 
Christ  because  of  his  alleged  miracles;  they  must  first  believe 
in  Christ  the  revelation  of  God,  then  in  miracle.  .  .  The  Sab- 
bath must  prove  itself  equal  to  the  demands  of  these  new  points 
of  view." 

(IS) 


